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THE UNIVERSITY OF DAILY KANSAS
TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2009
NHL
Canucks have chance for sweep
Despite injury to center Sundin, Vancouver is one game away from advancing to the second round of NHL playoffs
BY R.B. FALLSTROM
Associated Press
Vancouver Canucks' Rick Ryden, right, and St. Louis Blues' Jay McLeemance play for the pick in the second period of Game 3 of a first-round NHL playoff hockey game Sunday in St. Louis. Vancouver leads the playoff series 3-0, and has a chance to sweep the series tonight.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ST. LOUIS — One win away from a first-round playoff sweep, the Vancouver Canucks are anything but cocky. One loss away from making their first postseason appearance in five years a colossal dud, the St. Louis Blues are not panicking.
The Canucks will attempt to neutralize another sellout crowd in Game 4 Tuesday night with the no-frills road-game mentality they used in the regular season. All sweep talk was steered away Monday, as easily as Roberto Luongo has handled shots in this series.
"Nobody's going to talk about that stuff," said Steve Bernier, who scored the go-ahead goal in a 3-2 victory Sunday night that put the Camucks up 3-0. "We came to St. Louis with one thing in mind: play shift to shift and not try to do everything extraordinary."
The Blues will lean on the second-half success that launched them from last in the Western Conference to sixth place despite injuries to stars Paul Kariya, Eric Brewer and Erik Johnson. They finished the regular season 9-1-1 to qualify with one game to go before running into Luongo & Co.
"We've been counted out before and surprised people, so we're not going to dwell on the past three games or it's just going to drag you down," forward David Backes said. "One game at a time.
"You've got to get the first one in your bag, and hopefully they haven't canceled our trip to Vancouver because we plan on using that plane."
Canucks center Mats Sundin said Monday his groin injury wasn't much better, a day after he was a lineup scratch. Sundin, who scored the go-ahead goal in Game 2, said his status will probably be determined at the morning skate on Tuesday.
Even without Sundin, the Canucks rode special teams in taking a commanding series lead. Vancouver scored all three goals on the power play, going 3-for-5, while shutting out the Blues on six chances with the man advantage.
The Blues are 1-for-17 on the power play in the series. They've totaled three goals overall while getting stymied by Luongo and a pesky penalty-kill unit that seldom allowed St. Louis to even set up shop in the offensive zone in Game 3.
St. Louis was third overall on the penalty kill and eighth on the power play in the regular season,
but might be a bit intimidated by Luongo. Even when in position in Game 3, they seemed to wait for the perfect shot.
The Sedin twins have been the
go-ahead goal in the third period, defy deflecting an off-target slap shot that bounced off the end boards to Steve Bernier alone in front of the net.
MLB
New stadium sees plenty of longball in first games
BY RONALD BLUM
Associated Press
Twenty were hit in the first four games alone as New York and
NEW YORK - Home runs are flying out of Yankee Stadium at a record pace for a new ballpark.
"There are a couple ballparks out there that the ball just travels well. This might be one of them," New York's Mark Teixeira, who hit two of those home runs, said after Monday night's game against Oakland was rained out.
Cleveland split the opening series that ended Sunday. That's easily the high for the first four games at a major league park, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, topping the 16 when Oakland started the 1996 season at Cashman Field in Las Vegas.
Fourteen of the home runs have
According to Elias, there were eight four-game spans of 20 or more homers at the original Yankee Stadium, some of them overlapping: one in 2000, two in 2003, one in 2004 and four in 2007.
Cherundolo said if the shape of the seating is the issue, winds from the west above 10 mph will cause the boost, and that weather pattern is most typical during spring and middle-to-late fall. The opening series was played in weather that was unseasonably warm for April in New York.
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2 Blocks West of HyVee on Clinton Pkwy.
been hit to right field, raising concern that there might be a wind tunnel in the $1.5 billion ballpark, which has wide, open concourses, as opposed to the narrow hallways in the original Yankee Stadium on the south side of 161st Street, which remains standing.
"Angle of the seating in the new stadium could have an effect on wind speed across the field." AccuWeather's Gina Cherundolo said on the company's Web site Monday. "The old Yankee Stadium had more stacked tiers and a large upper deck, acting like a solid wall, in effect, which would cause the wind to swirl more and be less concentrated.
"The new Yankee Stadium's tiers are less stacked, making a less sharp slope from the top of the stadium to the field. This shape could enable winds to blow across the field with less restriction. In addition, the slope of the seating would also lead to a 'downslope' effect in the field which, depending on wind direction, would tend to cause air to lift up in the right field."
The high of 26 was from July 31-Aug. 2, 2007.
"It isn't something that I want to see a lot, unless it's all ours. But it was an interesting four days." Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. "I didn't think the ball carried yesterday. I thought it was different yesterday than it was the first three days. So who knows what's going to happen? I mean, it's a small sample."
Twenty-eight homers have been hit in six games at the new ballpark, including eight during two exhibitions against the Cubs. There were 160 home runs last year at Yankee Stadium, just under two per game.
Girardi didn't sound particularly concerned about the new park playing as if it were Coors Field or Citizens Bank Park.
"If it does happen, it wears out the other bullpen, too," he said. "I mean, everyone has to deal with the same issues."
"We can get into the summer months when it's hot and humid, and the ball might be carrying even better," he said. "We'll kind of just see what happens."
Populous, the firm formerly known as HOK Sport, which designed the ballpark, did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment. Yankees spokeswoman Alice McGillion said the team had no comment.
Teams around the majors, watching on television, took notice of all the home runs and started speculating about a wind tunnel.
Teixeira thinks it will take half a season to evaluate.
"There possibly could." said Oakland's Jason Giambi, fresh off seven seasons with the Yankees.
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