It's Friday!

It's Friday. Here's what's happening....

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Hockey Playoff Roundup ----

NHL:

Last night --

Eastern Conference Finals

Montreal 5, Philadelphia 1 (Philadelphia leads series 2-1)

Western Conference Finals

No games

Tonight --

Eastern Conference Finals

No games

Western Conference Finals

San Jose at Chicago 8:00pm EDT (Chicago leads series 2-0)

AHL

Last night --

Western Conference Finals

No games

Eastern Conference Finals

Hershey 3, Manchester 2, OT (Hershey leads series 3-2)

Tonight --

Western Conference Finals

Hamilton at Texas 7:30pm EDT (Hamilton leads series 2-1)

Eastern Conference Finals

No games

ECHL Kelly Cup Championship Finals

Last night --

Cincinnati 3, Idaho 2 (Cincinnati leads series 3-1)

Tonight --

Idaho at Cincinnati 7:30pm EDT(Cincinnati leads series 3-1)














2010 MasterCard Memorial Cup at Brandon, Manitoba

Last night --

No games

Tonight --

Brandon(WHL) vs Calgary(WHL) 8:30pm EDT - Semifinal game

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NHL signs first European trained official.

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From http://www.tampabay.rays.mlb.com

NEW YORK -- James Shields didn't lose his cool and the homers kept coming, so the Rays boarded their charter on Thursday night with a convincing takedown of the Yankees tucked neatly in their back pockets.

In walking away with an 8-6 victory on Thursday night, the Rays took both ends of their abbreviated two-game series and moved to 30-11 on the season, increasing their lead in the American League East to five games over the second-place Yankees. In addition, the Rays have won six straight games, eight of their past nine and 13 of their past 17. And, perhaps most impressive of all, Tampa Bay is now 17-4 on the road.

"We know exactly how good they are," Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez said. "They're that good. And they're going to be that good all year, because they're very athletic, they can pitch and they can catch the ball. They have a plus defender at every position. What we have to do is play fundamental baseball and continue to win series."

Thursday night's win came complete with some early drama.

With the Rays leading, 3-2, in the third inning, Randy Winn hit a leadoff single to left and Derek Jeter singled on a bunt to put runners on first and second. Brett Gardner then put down a sacrifice bunt that Shields fielded and threw away, allowing Winn to score and tie the game at 3 with the heart of the Yankees' order due up.

"I had second and third, no outs, and all I wanted to do was minimize my damage and keep them to one [run]," Shields said. "And with no outs and a man on third, you have to kind of cash in that run mentally and just get the out."

Shields retired Mark Teixeira on a soft grounder that the right-hander fielded and threw to first without allowing the runner to score. He then struck out Rodriguez and Robinson Cano swinging.

"I just so happened to make a good pitch and got [Teixeira] grounding back to me and struck out the next two," Shields said. "My job is to keep the team in the game, and so far on this road trip, our team has been banging. I knew that we had a chance to win, and we were getting to [Yankees starter Andy] Pettitte early. I wanted to keep us in the game as long as I could."

Shields did just that, throwing 7 1/3 innings to pick up his fifth win of the season, making him the fifth starter in the Rays' rotation to have five or more wins this season.

"[Shields] pitched extremely well," Rays manager Joe Maddon said. "He made some good pitches and was able to get out of some jams. That one instance where he had to face Teixeira, Rodriguez and Cano and got out of it -- that was big. He centered on what he did and threw the ball very well."

Tampa Bay home runs aided Shields' cause greatly.

Ben Zobrist hit a two-run homer off Pettitte during the Rays' three-run first to stake Shields to a 3-0 lead before he'd even thrown a pitch. The homer to right field brought welcome relief to Zobrist, as it gave him his first home run of the season following a 2009 campaign in which he hit 27 homers.

After the Yankees tied the game at 3, B.J. Upton connected for his first home run in 26 games to give the Rays a 4-3 lead. And finally, Carlos Pena -- last season's AL co-home run champion -- kicked in with his first homers since April 28 by hitting solo drives in the sixth and eighth innings, increasing his total on the season to seven.

"Baseball is a curious game," said Pena when asked about the troika of Pena, Zobrist and Upton coming to life all in the same game. "Things like that happen. It's weird, and you can't explain it. But it's kind of a coincidence that it happened that way today. At the end of the day, it's a win for us and we're thrilled about it. And personally, I'm just happy that I could contribute."

All along, Maddon downplayed the importance of the series, so he smiled after Thursday's game when asked if the Rays had sent the Yankees a message by winning both games in the Bronx.

"I don't know if we're message senders," Maddon said. "The point is they know that we can play well and that we can play well here. They also know that they're banged up."

During the series, the Yankees were missing Curtis Granderson, Nick Johnson, Alfredo Aceves and Jorge Posada. Marcus Thames got injured in Wednesday night's game, and Nick Swisher returned on Thursday.

"As they analyze this situation, they're going to realize, obviously, that they're missing some very good players," Maddon said. "And they're going to think about the next time we play them when they're going to be more at full strength. I don't blame them -- I would think the same way.

"But we'll take these two wins, and we'll move it along. But they're very good for a reason. We've been playing really well. We played two really good games at this particular moment, and we needed to prove to ourselves that we can win here."

The Rays now move on to Houston for three games starting at 8:05pm EDT tonight on 620AM WDAE.

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It's National Bike to Work Day.

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Here's the 2010 schedule for Oregon State University Football:

Date Opponent / Event Location Time

09/04/10 vs. TCU Arlington, Texas 4:45p.m. ET
09/18/10 vs. Louisville Corvallis, Ore. TBA
09/25/10 at Boise State Boise, Idaho TBA
10/02/10 vs. Arizona State Corvallis, Ore. TBA
10/09/10 at Arizona Tucson, Ariz. TBA
10/16/10 at Washington Seattle, Wash. TBA
10/30/10 vs. California* Corvallis, Ore. TBA
11/06/10 at UCLA Los Angeles, Calif. TBA
11/13/10 vs. Washington State** Corvallis, Ore. TBA
11/20/10 vs. USC Corvallis, Ore. 8:00 p.m. ET
11/27/10 at Stanford Stanford, Calif. TBA
12/04/10 vs. Oregon Corvallis, Ore. TBA
*- Homecoming
**-Dad's Weekend

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That's it for today. See you tomorrow.