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NHL

With the National Hockey League about to be re-launched -- talks resumed in small groups yesterday in New York -- Maple Leafs general manager John Ferguson must take a long-range look at his goaltending. He retains confidence that 40-year-old Ed Belfour hasn't lost his edge, despite a year off that included back surgery. Last summer, Belfour re-signed for a $2 million US bonus, $6 million for the lockout year and the same for 2005-06. With the coming 24% rollback, he still will make $3.9 million this year. At the same time, Ferguson has to start looking at a future without the former Vezina Trophy winner. The crop of free agents about to come on the market is bound to include some goalies.
--Toronto Sun

The people in the game have to realize it's the sixth, seventh or eighth sport now," said Boca Raton-based sports agent Larry Rauch, who has represented Hall of Famers Brad Park and Rod Gilbert. "It can come back but not without a major effort by everybody." Even the most intense hockey fan "has been emotionally scarred," said Jupiter's Rick Horrow, a sports business specialist and visiting professor at Harvard. "He has to be brought back with great care, and he needs to understand that five years from now, hockey will be better for what has happened."
--Palm Beach Post

It's that last site -- Vancouver, host of the 2010 Winter Olympics -- that no doubt serves as a carrot for the NHL's presumed 2006 Olympic participation. Just as the league went to the 1998 Nagano Olympics with a marketing eye toward the 2002 Salt Lake City Games, the same might be true this coming February in Italy, where the league hopes its fans see a game that mirrors -- not mocks -- its own this time. Another certainty as the NHL labor fight mercifully draws to a close is much-needed rule changes -- everything from overtime shoot-outs to the return of the two-line pass -- are likely to be implemented when play resumes. The goal is to create a more exciting brand of hockey, the kind fans clamored for after watching the 2002 Olympic hockey tournament on prime-time television.
--Detroit News

Representatives for the NHL and players' union ignored the holiday Monday and resumed negotiations. The sides appear to be inching closer to a new collective-bargaining agreement and an end to the league-imposed lockout that resulted in the cancellation of the 2004-05 season. "We're still working," Bill Daly , the league's executive vice president and chief legal officer, said in an e-mail. "We're making slow progress, but it's a long process." The sides apparently agreed the 24 percent rollback of existing contracts the union offered in December will be part of any new deal. They also agreed to include a hard salary cap, which would be set at 54 percent of league revenue and would feature maximum and minimum levels. The sides are working toward a minimum salary threshold of about $24-million and salary cap of $38-million to $39-million.
--St. Petersburg Times

SOCCER

Manchester United skipper Roy Keane has thrown down the title gauntlet to Chelsea by declaring: "We'll be back." Keane says United's disappointing Premiership campaign last season has only made them more determined to regain the league crown from Jose Mourinho's side. And Keane claims United have the players to dethrone Chelsea in Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo. "We'll be back," he said in Nuts magazine. "Disappointments like these make you hungrier for success. We are Manchester United and we will keep on fighting and reclaim the Premiership.
--The Mirror (UK)

South Korean international Park Ji-Sung has been cleared to join Manchester United. A hearing in Sheffield yesterday attended by Sir Alex Ferguson granted the 24-year-old a work permit, leaving him free to link up for pre-season training with the Red Devils, probably next Monday. United had been forced to appeal an initial decision to refuse Park entry because he had not played 75% of his country's internationals over the past two years.
--Manchester Evening News