Baltimore Arena

The Baltimore version of the Jewish Community Center Maccabi Games begins tonight at 7 with opening ceremonies at Baltimore Arena. A total of 1,934 athletes, ages 13 to 16 from six countries and the United States, will participate in four days of competitions in 12 sports at nine venues around the Baltimore area starting tomorrow at 8 a.m. Contingents of 17 athletes from Australia, 20 from Poland, 24 from Israel, 39 from Mexico and 46 from Venezuela will...

Baltimore Jewish Film Festival If the recent Academy Awards have temporarily sated your appetite for hype, you might enjoy some films off the beaten red carpet. The 14th annual Baltimore Jewish Film Festival, which opens at 8:30 p.m. Saturday and runs throughout the month, will introduce seven films never before seen in the Baltimore area. (Two are documentaries.) The lineup includes movies from Israel, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, France, Belgium, Hungary and the United States. The films are: I Am Alive and I Love You(above)

WHILE THE Howard Street department stores were gearing up for the 1964 fall shopping season, Memorial Stadium's two tenants were treating their fans to memorable performances. The Orioles were in a red-hot three-way pennant race that would go down to the wire, and the Colts were beginning a season that would take them to their third Western Conference championship. And a worldwide phenomenon descended on the Holiday Inn on Lombard Street, then distinguished by its revolving rooftop restaurant, when it played host to the Beatles when they came to town to perform at what was called the Civic Center and is now the Baltimore Arena.

A vice president at Struever Bros., Eccles & Rouse is floating a plan that calls for a $130 million arena to be constructed either on the site of the existing Baltimore Arena or on a nearby lot. The idea, championed by Janet Marie Smith, vice president of planning and development for Struever Bros., is being touted now out of concern that prime sites might not be available several years from now. Smith, who directed the design of Oriole Park at Camden Yards and helped build Turner Field in Atlanta, could not be reached yesterday.

Heartfest 2002 Sample heart-healthy gourmet food created by area chefs, sip fine wines and dance to the music of Stevie V and the Heart Attackers from 7:30 p.m. to midnight Saturday at Martin's West, 6817 Dogwood Road, Woodlawn. At Heartfest 2002, the 12th annual benefit for the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease, you can also meet Baltimore Colts legend Tom Matte and heart-disease-prevention advocate Mary Wilson (pictured), a singer who was formerly a member of the Supremes, a writer and an actress.

Absent some miraculous shift in public opinion, the Charlotte Hornets will be heading for new territory come the end of the season, and there are at least three cities offering them safe harbor. One of them is not the Harbor city, namely Baltimore, and that doesn't make sense. That the Hornets are going is in little doubt. Fans in Charlotte, once the most rabid in the league throughout the first eight or nine years of the franchise, have become indifferent, if not hostile, to the Hornets.

Blast forward Lee Tschantret knows he'll probably get fined for this. He couldn't care less. To say Tschantret was unhappy with the officiating following Kansas City's 22-21 win over the Blast last night at Kemper Arena would be the ultimate understatement. Tschantret was ejected only 2:33 into the game because he bumped senior referee Mark Del Corral. Del Corral later requested a police escort off the field at halftime for himself and his crew. "He's an official? It's atrocious," said Tschantret, who entered the game as the Blast's fourth-leading scorer with 23 points.

Just announced The Neville Brothers will perform at Goucher College's Kraushaar Auditorium March 9. Concert benefits Sheppard Pratt's Care for Kids Fund. Call 410-938-3100. B.T. Productions' annual "Valentine Show," starring The Temptations, will be held Feb. 17 at the Baltimore Arena. Also performing will be the Manhattans, featuring Gerald Alston and Blue Lovett, Harold Melvin's Blue Notes, featuring Sharon Paige, and the Softones. Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Monday. Call 410-481-SEAT; for group sales, call 410-902-0748.

After Sept. 11, the stakes have been raised for touring rock bands. And U2 - never a band to shy away from a challenge - brings the goods on a tour that stops tonight at the Baltimore Arena. "We feel very blessed to be on a tour at this time in the United States," said singer Bono Monday night at Chicago's United Center. U2's songs have always addressed the big subjects: war and peace, love and betrayal, sin and faith. And those themes resonate more deeply than ever for an audience clearly starved for some sort of spiritual sustenance.

Baltimore made quite a splash last weekend up in Chicago. The Pride of Baltimore II blew into the Windy City, and became the sight to see at that burg's Navy Pier -- an area much like our own Inner Harbor. Saturday night, the Maryland Port Administration held a private shindig aboard the schooner. "We take it for granted that we get to see ships in the water," says port commissioner Tom Koch, "but in the Midwest, they find a topsail schooner pretty exciting. They referred to it in the paper as a 'tall ship.