st of the season.The Stor

Edmonton, AB (SportsNetwork. Joe Montana Youth Jersey .com) - The Edmonton Oilers fired head coach Dallas Eakins on Monday. Eakins was in just his second season with the perennially rebuilding Oilers, who reside in the Western Conference basement with a 7-19-5 record. They are tied with the Carolina Hurricanes for the fewest points in the league at 19. TSN is reporting that general manager Craig MacTavish will take over the coaching duties on an interim basis. He coached the Oilers for eight seasons from 2000-09. Eakins dismissal comes as the Oilers are in a free fall, having lost 15 of their last 16 games (1-11-4). Edmonton went 29-44-9 last season under Eakins, who landed his first NHL head coaching job on the strength of a four-year stint directing the Toronto Marlies, the top minor league affiliate of the Maple Leafs. Eakins was the Oilers fourth head coach since MacTavishs run. Edmonton hasnt reached the playoffs since losing to the Hurricanes in the 2006 Stanley Cup Finals. Y.A. Tittle Jersey . Both had to wait out a rain interruption lasting nearly five hours before taking comprehensive third-round victories to join Carling Bassett-Seguso (1983, 1986), Patricia Hy-Boulais (1996-97) and Daniel Nestor (1999) as Canadians who made it into the second week of a major. Deion Sanders 49ers Jersey . Toronto FC hosts the three-time Italian league champions in a friendly Aug. 7 at BMO Field, a game that Roma CEO Italo Zanzi said falls within a key part of their pre-season.NAGANO, Japan -- Defending champion Michael Mulder of the Netherlands won the mens 500-meter race at the world sprint speedskating championships on Saturday. Mulder clocked a time of 34.83 seconds to finish 0.36 seconds ahead of Daniel Greig of Australia. Mirko Giacomo Nenzi of Italy was third with a time of 35.27 seconds. Shani Davis of the United States was 11th with a time of 35.58. Jing Yu of China won the womens 500 with a time of 37.67, 0.33 seconds ahead of Margot Boer of the Netherlands. Defending champion Heather Richardson of the United States was third with a time of 38.04. The world sprint speed skating championships features 50 of the fastest sprinters in the world competing in the 500 and 1,000 metre races. Denis Kuzin of Kazakhstan won the mens 1,000 with a time of 1 minute, 09.37 seconds, edging Davis by 0.07 seconds. Kjeldd Nuis of the Netherlands was third in 1:09. Jimmy Garoppolo Womens Jersey . 56. Hong Zhang of China won the womens 1,000 event with a time of 1:15.17, edging Boer by 0.14 seconds. Jing Yu of China was third in 1:15.61. It was a poor day for Canadas Christine Nesbitt. The London, Ont., native finished fifth in the 1,000 in 1:16.42 and well back in 15th in the 500. William Dutton had Canadas best result. Dutton, from Humbolt, Sask., was fourth in the 1,000 in 1:09.89. Quebec Citys Alexandre St-Jean was 10th, Winnipegs Tyler Derraugh was just behind in 11th and Laurent Dubreuil of Levis Que., trailed in 13th. In the mens 500, Dutton finished fifth in in 35.37 seconds. Dubreuil as ninth while Derraugh tied for 16th. The skaters who start in the inner lane on Saturday will start in the outer lane on Sunday to have equal circumstances for everyone. ' ' '

ISTANBUL - Aaron Ramsey and Lukas Podolski each scored twice to give Arsenal a 4-1 victory over Galatasaray in the Champions League on Tuesday, but the London side came short of its aim of finishing top of Group D. Jason Dickinson Jersey .Arsenal had already qualified for the last 16 of the competition and was playing for a chance to overtake Borussia Dortmund to top spot in the group, but the German side drew 1-1 with Anderlecht to secure top billing in the group.Galatasaray — already eliminated from the last 16 after finishing bottom — was playing for pride.There was a little bit of frustration ... we knew at half time we needed to score six without conceding, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said. Unfortunately it wasnt enough. We finished with 13 points and did the job tonight.Podolski opened the scoring two minutes into the game, shooting high into the top left corner. Eight minutes later, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain drew two defenders before passing to Ramsey, who powered the ball into the bottom left corner. A fierce volley by Ramsey from 25 yards out in the 28th gave Arsenal its third goal.Ramsey described the goal as one of the best of his career.The ball came to the edge of the box and I thought why not, Ill have a go ... And I had a go, Ramsey said.In the first half, Galatasaray found it hard to cope with Arsenals quick and accurate passing despite the fact that the London side had left many of its first-choice players behind. The Turkish side improved in the second half, but many of its chances lacked finish.Galatasarays consolation came from a free kick by Wesley Sneijder in the 86th minute from just outside the penalty area.In the final minute of added time, Podolski made it 4-1 when he rounded the goalkeeper to slot the ball into the bottom right corner. The final score matched the result of the teams first match at the Emirates Stadium on Oct. 1.We came here with a few players making their first appearance tonight. It was nice to come here and nearly, nearly come away with what we needed to finish top, Ramsey said.We took full advantage of the opportunities and it was nice to get the goals that we saw today, he said. Brian Bellows Stars Jersey . "I dont know where we would be without him," McClendon said. "Hes done a tremendous job for us and (Wednesday) was no different." Logan Morrison drove in two runs in Seattles big sixth inning, Young pitched seven strong innings and the Mariners beat the Houston Astros 5-2 to complete a three-game sweep. Mike Modano Stars Jersey . Rodgers was ruled out on Friday by Packers head coach Mike McCarthy. Matt Flynn will make his second consecutive start for the Packers.PRETORIA, South Africa -- As the girlfriend he shot in the head lay dead or dying in his home, a weeping, praying Oscar Pistorius knelt at her side and struggled in vain to help her breathe by holding two fingers in her clenched mouth, a witness testified Thursday at the double-amputee runners murder trial. "I shot her. I thought she was a burglar. I shot her," radiologist Johan Stipp, a neighbour, recalled Pistorius saying. The worried neighbour had entered Pistorius home after hearing screams. By that time, the celebrated athlete had carried Reeva Steenkamps bloodied body downstairs following the fatal nighttime shooting in his bathroom. A few minutes after he arrived, Stipp said, Pistorius went back upstairs -- the area where he had shot the 29-year-old model -- and returned. At that point, Stipp said he was concerned that the gun used in the shooting had not been recovered and that a distraught Pistorius was going to harm himself. The testimony did not address what Pistorius did when he went upstairs. Stipps account in a Pretoria court was the first detailed, public description of the immediate aftermath of the shooting in the pre-dawn hours of Feb. 14 last year. Pistorius is charged with premeditated murder after shooting Steenkamp three times out of four shots through the toilet door, with prosecutors trying to build a case that the Olympian intentionally killed Steenkamp after a loud argument. At his bail hearing last year, Pistorius said in a statement read by his lawyer that after he realized he had shot Steenkamp, thinking mistakenly that she was an intruder, he pulled on his prosthetic legs and tried to kick down the toilet door. He said he finally gave up and bashed the door in with a cricket bat. Inside, he said he found Steenkamp, slumped over but still alive. He said he lifted her body and carried her downstairs to seek medical help. On Thursday, as Stipp recalled the sometimes grisly details through questioning by the prosecutor, Pistorius bent forward on the wooden court bench and put his hand over his face. Clutching what appeared to be black rosary beads, Pistorius then moved his hands to cover both ears as Stipp described the scene at the athletes villa sometime after 3 a.m. Pistorius stayed that way for a while in the courtroom, even when one of his lawyers reached back and touched him on the head in an apparent gesture of reassurance. "Oscar was crying all the time," Stipp continued. "He was praying to God, Please let her live." "Oscar said he would dedicate "his life and her life to God" if she would live, Stipp said. The chief defence lawyer, Barry Roux, asked Stipp if he thought Pistorius emotions as the ruunner knelt next to Steenkamp were genuine. Blake Comeau Stars Jersey . Stipp said he thought they were. "He looked sincere to me," Stipp said of observing Pistorius minutes after hed fatally shot his girlfriend. "He was crying. There were tears on his face." Prosecutors contend that a person who has just killed someone might immediately feel remorse. Stipp, whose house is behind Pistorius, said he had initially been woken by what he described as a womans screams. After calling private security at the gated community, he said he decided he should go and try to help. When he arrived at Pistorius home, he saw that two other responders were already there -- a man standing outside and a woman near the front door as he walked in. He said he rushed right past them and went inside to see if he could be of assistance. "At the bottom of the stairs ... there was a lady lying on her back on the floor," Stipp said of his first observations. "I went near her and as I bent down, I also noticed a man on the left kneeling by her side. He had his left hand on her right groin, and his right hand, the second and third fingers in her mouth." "It was obvious that she was mortally wounded," Stipp said. "She had no pulse in the neck, she had no peripheral pulse. She had no breathing movements that she made." As a radiologist, Stipp is a medical doctor with years of study, and he said he used his expertise to try to save the woman -- even though he was fairly sure his efforts would be in vain. He noticed a wound in the womans right thigh, in her upper arm and in the right side of the head, and there was brain tissue around the skull. Stipp didnt know the man was Pistorius until later, he said. He had mistakenly thought Pistorius lived in a different house in the gated community. Echoing the assertions of two other state witnesses in the trial, Stipp also maintained that he heard a womans screams before and around the time of the gunshots. That is a significant issue in the case. Prosecutors say there was a fight between Pistorius and Steenkamp and that she was screaming before and perhaps during the shooting. Pistorius says he was the only one to scream, mainly after realizing hed shot his girlfriend by mistake. Roux, the defence lawyer, described the head wound as "terrible, serious, devastating," arguing that Steenkamp could not have screamed during the gunfire because she would not have been able to. "What Im saying to you, when you heard screams, it could not have been the deceased," Roux said to Stipp. "Its medically impossible." It is unclear, however, which of the four shots struck Steenkamps head. ' ' '

Four days after being praised as a hero for helping Russia win its first gold at the Sochi Olympics, Evgeni Plushenko was taking criticism Friday for dropping out of the mens figure skating. Daniel Jones Giants Jersey . Plushenkos strong performance in the team event brought wide accolades for his determination to overcome injury. But on Thursday he withdrew before the mens short program, complaining of severe spinal pain during the warmup. Plushenko was Russias only men singles skater in Sochi. He won the slot in a closed exhibition skate that cut out Maxim Kovtun, who beat him in the Russian nationals. Among his critics was longtime rival Alexei Yagudin, the 2002 Olympic gold medalist. He told the R-Sport news agency he supports "people who go to the end." "I think Zhenya will understand my words," he said, using the familiar version of Plushenkos name. "We always competed through the pain." The choice of Plushenko as the sole Russian man was debatable. Although he was the dominant skater the past 15 years, with an Olympic gold and two silvers before coming to Sochi, he is 31-years-old and underwent back surgery a year ago. When he was selected, advocates argued his long international experience made him a stronger choice than the 18-year-old Kovtun. Decision comes under fire But that came under sharp questioning Friday.  "You should go when its time," Ruslan Nugmatullin, a former Russian national soccer goalkeeper said on Twitter. "Kovtun earned the right to participate in Sochi2014." Alexei Urmanov, the 1994 Olympic gold-medal winner, suggested that Plushenkos hubris backfired.  "Its on the conscience of Zhenya, the team and the federation," he was quoted by R-Sport. To some politicians, Plushenkos withdrawal was a blow to Russias national pride. "Perform through the pain for the honor of the country," Igor Lebedev, a parliament member from the nationalist Liberal Democrats, said on Twitter. Elena Vaitsekhovskaya, the figure skating correspondent for Russias Sport-Express newspaper, seemed weary not only of the intrigue behind Plushenkos selection but also of the appearances of his flamboyant wife, Yana Rudkovskaya, in the mixed zone to support him. "All of this was reminiscent of an incompetently directed stage show," she wrote. "It became harder and harder to sympathize with the athlete." "The one-man show in Sochi has concluded. Real sport has begun," she said in the newspapers Friday edition. But more complaints may still come. "After Sochi, the federation will have to answer for its choice," nationalist lawmaker Vladimir Zhirinovsky said.  Phil Simms Cheap Jersey . Hes the same player he always was, only now his efforts are being rewarded. The rookie manager has made a habit of heaping praise on others when things are going well, and accepting criticism when they arent.  But in the case of Hurtado, its what the coach is NOT saying that may be the secret to a superb run of form. Michael Strahan Jersey .C. -- Colin Kaepernick raced into the end zone, then pretended to rip open his shirt with both hands imitating Cam Newtons Superman touchdown celebration.BRIDGEVIEW, Ill. -- Sebastien Le Toux scored on a penalty kick in the 91st minute and the Philadelphia Union came back to tie the Chicago Fire 1-1 on Saturday. Le Toux was awarded the penalty kick after Gonzalo Segares was called for a hand ball inside the penalty area. Segares turned his back on Le Touxs shot, but the ball hit his right arm. Le Toux calmly slotted home the penalty kick inside the left post, past a diving Sean Johnson. HHe has scored five goals in his past six games for Philadelphia (5-8-8). Eli Manning Giants Jersey . Jeff Larentowicz headed home a corner kick from Harrison Shipp in the 60th minute for a 1-0 lead for Chicago (3-4-11). The duo failed to convert a similar play in the 37th minute when Larentowiczs header was just high of the crossbar. Neither team had a player selected for the MLS All-Star game when the rosters were announced Saturday. ' ' '