Who's Hot Who's Not

WHO'S Hot

Lindsay Vonn
No Vonn like her. Despite a surgically repaired thumb—slashed on a broken champagne bottle while celebrating a Feb. 9 victory—she pulled out the Super G in Tarvisio, Italy, to become the winningest U.S. woman skier ever. Her 19 career wins aren't all; Vonn is the World Cup points leader.

Andy Roddick
A winner! For the first time in 2009, after putting away Radek Stepanek in Memphis. That gives Roddick at least one ATP victory nine years' running—and no one else has ever done that. Applause! From fiancée and SI Swimsuit model Brooklyn Decker, who was there to support him.

Mariners
The AL's losingest team in 2008 may not improve much this season, but they're feeling better already. Junior is back. Nine years after he left for Cincinnati, Ken Griffey Jr. returned, at the reasonable rate of $2 million for one year, to the team for which he hit 398 homers in 11 seasons. That should help in the lineup and at the box office.

Mats Sundin
The center's surge (nine points in nine games) is just what the Canucks (8-1-0 in that stretch) signed him for in December. His sweetest reward: returning to Toronto (where he played the last 13 years), getting a standing O ("I was probably crying a little," he said) and scoring the shootout winner.

WHO'S Not

Emmitt Smith
Yes, something he can't do. The NFL's alltime rushing leader and 2006 Dancing with the Stars champ was not re-signed after two gloriously malapropic years as an ESPN analyst. Now who will tell fans things like, "The NFC West is probably one of the weakest conferences in the whole NFC"?

Dubai Open
No Roddick or Rafael Nadal or Roger Federer or Nikolay Davydenko at this week's stop. The stars have their reasons for not showing up, and here's Roddick's: He's ticked that Israel's Shahar Peer was denied entry to the United Arab Emirates to play in the women's tournament.

Nationals
Exhibition games hadn't begun and the news was already bleak for the majors' worst team in '08. G.M. Jim Bowden is under federal investigation for his possible role in skimming prospects' bonus money, and assistant G.M. Jose Rijo took a leave of absence after it was revealed that a prospect wasn't who he said he was (FOR THE RECORD, page 16).

New York Rangers
Once among Sundin's suitors, the Blueshirts sure could use him now. After a 2-8-2 run in which they'd scored more than two goals just twice, Rangers coach Tom Renney was fired. Now, will that cure the scoring woes or silence all that booing at home?