Regeln » es. First reported by FOX Sports Ken Ros

MONTREAL - It was a tough two-week, seven-game road trip for the Vancouver Canucks, but a special moment awaited at the end.The Canucks got to take part in remembrance ceremonies honouring Canadiens great and hockey legend Jean Beliveau, who died last week at 83.The team attended Beliveaus public visitation at Bell Centre on Monday, and there was a pre-game ceremony planned for their road trip-ending game on Tuesday night.Theres been so many ceremonies over the years that I dont get personally affected by them, but this will be a pretty special one, said defenceman Kevin Bieksa. Throughout the course of my career there are a few special ceremonies that I think Ill remember when I retire.Im sure this will be one of them. Having a chance to walk down the rink and pay respects to the family was a pretty special moment. Itll be sad in some respects, but also its a celebration of his life. He was obviously a pretty tremendous man. Ive got to know a lot more about him in the last couple of days just from hearing stories and reading about him.Forward Daniel Sedin agreed it was not like most pre-game ceremonies.This is special because of the man he was, how big he was in this community and for this organization, said Sedin. As a player, you go through ceremonies pretty much every time you play in Canada, but nothing like this.The Canucks left home on Nov. 28 on their longest trip of the season, which included wins in Columbus, Washington and Pittsburgh, losses in Detroit and Toronto and an overtime defeat in Ottawa on Sunday.Its a difficult road trip, added Bieksa. Its good from a perspective of getting together with the guys, bonding, having some team dinners.Wins can be galvanizing, moreso on the road, but its also been a long trek.The Canucks (18-6-5) have been one of the surprise teams in the early part of the NHL schedule. And once the road trip is out of the way, they can look forward to a break. They begin a four-game homestand Saturday night against the New York Rangers and play nine of their next 11 at home, where they are 7-3-1 this season.Coach Willie Desjardins said an extended trip can be good for the team in the long run.You get these stretches, well get another (five-game trip) in March, and if youre ever fortunate enough to get to the playoffs, you get it again, said Desjardins. Its a good way for your team to learn and be prepared for that, because in the end youve got to find a way to win every night. It doesnt matter what the situation is.Asked to assess the trip, Desjardins said: Parts of it have been good. The Toronto game (a 5-2 loss on Saturday night) I thought we played hard. We didnt play good in the Ottawa game, but the Toronto game we played hard. I thought we played hard in the Detroit game (a 5-3 loss). Youre not happy about losing, but at least we had good effort in those games.The trip has been memorable for rookie Bo Horvat, who found it longer than any he went on in junior hockey with the London Knights. Its awesome, he said. I only got to see three or four NHL rinks over the past years, so to be playing in all these rinks and seeing the different cities, its pretty special.To visit all these cities and to come close to home and have all the family there, its pretty cool.The 19-year-old Horvat said he has been given no indication whether he will be loaned to Team Canada for the world junior championship in Montreal and Toronto. NHL teams have until the Dec. 19 roster freeze to decide whether to loan out junior-age players. He hopes to stay with the Canucks.The low point of the Canucks trip came in Toronto, when centre Shawn Matthias left the game in the second period after taking an elbow to the head from Maple Leafs defenceman Stephane Robidas.Matthias, who missed the next game in Ottawa, took some line rushes in the game-day skate in Montreal but was uncertain to play.Im just kind of being cautious, said Matthias, who was not pleased that Robidas was not disciplined by the NHL for the hit. It was a pretty vicious hit to the head.The point of contact was my head. But I dont want to be looked upon as a complainer, so Im not going to complain about the hit. Im going to move on from it. Im not happy about not hearing anything about it, but my main focus now is to get ready to get back into the lineup and try and get to 100 per cent.He added that he felt good after the session.I thought I had a good skate, he said. I have to do some more testing and see how it goes. Im not sure when I’ll be back in. Ive got to pass the tests. Cheap Old Skool Wholesale . Raonic, the mens No. 8 seed from Thornhill, Ont., needed more than three hours to overcome Frenchman Gilles Simon 4-6, 6-3, 2-6, 6-2, 7-5 and become the first Canadian man into the fourth round at Roland Garros. Cheap Old Skool From China . Span, Danny Espinosa and Adam LaRoche had two hits apiece as Washington won the final two games of the series. The Nationals improved to 3-7 against Atlanta. They increased their division lead over the Braves to 1 1/2 games. http://www.cheapoldskoolchina.com/. With the team he supported as a child on the verge of reaching the Champions League semifinals for the first time in 19 years, Ba instead scored the goal that knocked them out. Old Skool Clearance . Today, he looks at the offensive line. 1. Laurent Duvernay-Tardif (OT, McGill) You Should Know: Over the course of his university career, Duvernay-Tardifs commitments to medical school and the family business frequently limited him to one practice per week, yet he was still the Metras Trophy winner as the Top Lineman in CIS football in 2013. Cheap Old Skool Free Shipping . The (35-35-10) Jets have 80 points and are also playing .500 hockey on home ice this season with a 17-17-6 record. Michael Hutchinson will start his second straight game in goal.Certain Toronto Blue Jays were so intent on bringing in free agent pitcher Ervin Santana as a teammate that they were will to defer some of their salaries. First reported by FOX Sports Ken Rosenthal, its unknown if the impetus for the deferral proposal came from players or management, but it never left the preliminary stages. Rosenthal says that a pair of agents had heard word of the plan, but that they were never approached by Blue Jays general manager Alex Anthopoulos. Santana turned down a one-year, $14 million offer from the Jays and signed with the Atlanta Braves on the same deal after the Braves lost Kris Medlen for the season with Tommy John surgery. Whether or not the actual deferral proposal would fly in practice is another discussion altogether, as there would likely have been significant hurdles from the MLBPA, who is normally loath to allow its players to concede any sort of contractual edge without commensurate compensation. "I never took it that seriously," an agent told Rosenthal. "No way it would have ever passed the (union) unless there was some gain for the players who did that." In an interview with Matt Galloway on CBCs Metro Morning, Blue Jays president and CEO Paul Beeston confirmed that such discussions took place, but maintained that payroll was there if needed. "There was discussion about that and, to be very honest with you, I think, had it gone that way, it would have been fine, but we are at $140 million [in payroll] right now," said Beeston. "The one thing that we do have is a very generous owner from the point of view of what they have committed to try to build the team. I think that the Rogers people, more importantly [former Rogers Communications CEO] Nadir [Mohamed] last year and carried on this year with [current CEO] Guy Laurence and the Rogers family, have given us the dollars weve wanted, that we need to put a contending team on the field. Its up to us to bring them together." For his part, Anthopoulos believed the deal was done. He would not, however, get into the specifics of how the pact would have been structured. "The takeaway for me is we felt that we had an agreement in place," Anthopoulos told reporters prior to teh Jays Friday home opener. "He was prepared to come here. We had the dollars. How we chooose to structure those dollars, those are things that we keep in house.dddddddddddd "But I believe if Kris Medlen had not been hurt, Ervin Santana would be here today." Not that Anthopoulos was about to hold that against the 31-year-old. "He had a lot more interest going into the NL, which is his right," he said. When pressed on whether or not the teams spending was capped, Beeston insisted that it wasnt. "Were a business, so the answer to that is that we have a budget," said Beeston. "Its not a cap. If we can increase our revenue, we can increase our expenses, but we run it as a business." With the Jays only signing catcher Dioner Navarro during the offseason, Beeston said that free agency is not the only avenue to improve his team and that trades could be made over the course of the season. "You have to organize it in manner that you might have to make some trades," Beeston explained. "You may have to look at different ways of bringing your players along, but I dont think from the point of view of money, money is our problem. One of the issues that we have is that we had to build our farm system up and we have done that over the last three or four years, but its not like hockey or basketball, where you come right out of the colleges or out of the minor leagues and move right into the Majors. So some of the pitchers that we have down there like [Marcus] Stroman and [Aaron] Sanchez, theyre just ready to come, but those are the guys that you will want to have introduced into your organization because they have to play three or four years before they make the big dollars. So you need a mixture of the players who are at the minimum, as well as your stars. But you dont win without stars." While Beeston acknowledged that teams can win with smalled budgets, free-spending teams are the ones most likely to find success. "Lets be realistic about it," said Beeston. "You can do it, but youre gonna get lucky and have everybody pop at the same time. Ultimately, teams like the Dodgers and the Yankees and Boston, that are spending all kinds of money, are basically the teams that have star players at every position." The Jays open a three-game set with the New York Yankees on Friday night at the Rogers Centre. ' ' '