dealing with a pretty fixed set of scheduling parameters. You cant call s

The Tampa Bay Lightning said Thursday that they plan to retire the No. 26 of Martin St. Louis, the franchise leader for points and assists.Lightning owner Jeff Vinik announced the franchises first jersey number retirement, which will be held Jan. 13.Everyone in the organization is excited to celebrate and thank Marty for his immense long-term contributions to the Lightnings past successes and the Tampa Bay community, Vinik said in a release. As Marty enters his second year in retirement from the game, we believe this season is the time to hang his number from the rafters at AMALIE Arena.St. Louis, who won a Cup with the Lightning in 2003-04 and was named the NHLs Hart Trophy winner as regular-season MVP, had 953 points (365-588) in 972 games with the Lightning over 13 seasons.?During the 2013-14 season, St. Louis requested that the Lightning trade him. He was traded to the New York Rangers?and finished his career there.To have my number retired by the Lightning is a tremendous honor and Id like to thank Jeff Vinik and everyone in the organization for recognizing me this way, St. Louis said in a statement. I have many great memories in Tampa Bay, including our great Stanley Cup win, and this night will be extremely special and emotional for my family and me.I am happy I will get to share the evening with all the Lightning fans who have always supported me throughout my career -- Tampa Bay will always feel like home to me. Additionally, I recognize that none of this would have been possible without the help of many great teammates, trainers, and coaches and I thank them. New Balance Shoes Online Uk . Los Angeles star goalie survived those perilous gymnastics with no problem, and he eventually backstopped the Kings to a skid-snapping win. Quick stopped 27 shots in his return from a 24-game injury absence, Jeff Carter scored the tiebreaking goal with 7:55 to play, and the Kings snapped their five-game losing streak with a 3-1 victory over the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday night. New Balance Clearance Store . Vaives lawyer Trevor Whiffen claims the former 50-goal man wasnt provided with a copy of the claim beforehand and that he would not have agreed to the allegations made against the NHL had he been asked to review its contents. http://www.newbalanceclearanceuk.com/ . -- Catcher Brett Hayes has agreed to a $630,000, one-year contract with the Kansas City Royals, avoiding salary arbitration. New Balance Shoes Uk Sale . - Chris Tierney snapped a tie with a power-play goal late in the third period as the London Knights rallied from a 3-0 deficit to beat the Erie Otters 5-3 in Ontario Hockey League action on Wednesday. New Balance Clearance Sale Uk . Fred Couples, captain of the U.S. side, put it all into perspective. "We know whos in charge," he said. If there is one man responsible for the sumptuous buffet of college football on the menu for this weekend, it would be Dave Brown, who has been to college football scheduling what LeBron James is to the Cleveland Cavaliers -- the one person indispensable to the subject at hand. Brown may have a low profile outside the business of the sport. But few people in intercollegiate athletics can get a phone call to an athletic director or head football coach returned faster than Brown.Brown for years was in charge of scheduling college football games for ABC and ESPN (he now is a consultant on college football scheduling with proprietary software that makes the complicated business much easier for his clients). As such, the remarkable array of nonconference games during Kickoff Week -- including Alabama-USC, LSU-Wisconsin, Texas A&M-UCLA, Georgia-North Carolina, Clemson at Auburn, Notre Dame at Texas and Florida State-Ole Miss -- are by and large the work of Brown and the staff with whom he worked at ESPN.People will always put themselves out there and play one really big game, Brown said. Thats it in a nutshell. Thats what happened.Well, thats not exactly what happened. Take LSU and Wisconsin playing Saturday at Lambeau Field (ABC, 3:30 p.m. ET), the home of the Green Bay Packers. They originally were scheduled to play next season. The Badgers had been scheduled to play Virginia Tech in Week 2. Virginia Tech agreed to move a home-and-home with Wisconsin to 2019-20, 11 years later than the two programs first agreed to play. By the way, that freed up the Hokies to play Tennessee in the Battle at Bristol in Week 2. Tennessee was supposed to play Nebraska on Sept. 10. However, that home-and-home is now scheduled for 2026-27.Your head starting to hurt yet?We had to move around a lot of things to get it done, Brown said.There are logistics and there is desire. A tip of the hat to the College Football Playoff is necessary here. The CFP selection committees emphasis on schedule strength has dissolved the objecttions of coaches against playing difficult nonconference opponents.dddddddddddd It can be like feeding spinach to children -- not many of them ask for seconds.You cant ask people to do something thats over and above what everybody else is doing, Brown said. Everybody else is playing one tough nonconference game? Thats what you can ask people to do.You call and you ask, you listen and you call back, you propose and maybe you wheedle. You call and you ask again. Brown has earned the trust of coaches to the point that they would call him to complain when they didnt like ESPNs coverage, which was not at all his bailiwick and put him in an awkward position. But he is the first to recognize the limits of what he can achieve.They really want seven home games, Brown said. Out of 12 games, with four on the road in the league, you are dealing with a pretty fixed set of scheduling parameters. You cant call somebody up and say, Do you mind going down to five home games? You dont even ask those kinds of questions.So you figure out which buttons to push. Texas A&M wanted to showcase the newly expanded Kyle Field. UCLA is coming to College Station, the first time the teams will play in the regular season in 61 years.The Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, which lost its ACC-SEC matchup when it became part of the New Years Six bowls, wanted to bring the two leagues together in its Kickoff Game. Hello, North Carolina and Georgia this year (and Alabama and Florida State next year).And the Crimson Tide wanted to open against a nonconference opponent at a neutral site, and is doing so for the fifth consecutive year (Michigan, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, Wisconsin, USC). Note that list of opponents completes the full set of other Power 5 conferences.You put the puzzle together, and sometimes you get a piece of art that hangs in a museum. Thats what Brown did for the opening week of the 2016 season. ' ' '