Jacks

VS. MONCTON HAWKS* WHEN: Tonight, 6:30.* WHERE: The Coliseum, Moncton, New Brunswick.* RADIO: WLIF-AM 1300.* OUTLOOK: The Jacks (8-4) play the second game of their 10-game road trip after losing 7-5 in Halifax Sunday. The defense and goaltending are struggling badly, allowing 18 goals in the past three games. However, the Jacks are still in first place in the Southern Division and are averaging more than five goals per game, highest in the AHL. The Hawks (7-4-5), led by Guy Larose (13 goals, six assists)

Now in its seventh season, Jack's Bistro has settled into a fine groove. The small Canton restaurant is essentially doing today what it was doing from the start - exactly what it wants to do. If that makes Jack's sound arrogant, you don't know Jack's. You won't find a more down-to-earth set of proprietors than the husband-and-wife team behind Jack's Bistro, Ted Stelzenmuller and Christie Smertycha - he's the owner and executive chef; she's the general manager. They're inveterate travelers, lifelong learners and constitutionally nice people.

The Washington Capitals assigned four Skipjacks players to the Hampton Roads Admirals of the East Coast Hockey League in order to get them more ice time, team officials said.Centers Vic Gervais and Harry Mews, defenseman Jiri Vykoukal and goalie Byron Dafoe will play in Friday's opener in Hampton, Va., against Columbus.Dafoe, who has started three games for the Jacks with a 3.69 goals-against average, will return to the Jacks when Don Beaupre moves onto the Caps roster, which will probably be next Tuesday in Pittsburgh.

In a unanimous vote, the City Council gave preliminary approval Monday to a bill that would require businesses getting large city contracts or financial support to hire 51 percent of new workers from Baltimore. "My council colleagues believe this is a fair thing to do," Council President Bernard C. "Jack" Young, the bill's lead sponsor, said after the vote. "We have an unemployment rate of 9.6 percent. We need to get Baltimore City to work. There are qualified people in this city that can do these jobs.

The Skipjacks announced yesterday that tomorrow's game in Utica will be the last broadcast on WLIF-AM 1300, which has been its flagship station all season.The station said yesterday that its programming switch to include a 100 percent simulcast on both its AM and FM stations doesn't allow for Jacks games.The Jacks reached a short-term agreement with WITH-AM 1230 to carry Friday's game at the Arena with Utica and Saturday's game with Capital District in Albany, N.Y. Ken Albert will remain the team's play-by-play man.There is no word on whether Sunday's regular-season finale in Binghamton will be carried on local radio.

HERSHEY, Pa. -- The final quarter of the season began last night with a loss and the Skipjacks have realized for the first time that their mediocre play is becoming a serious problem in the standings.For the first time this season many in the Jacks' locker room felt the fear of not being a part of the AHL playoffs at the end of next month."It's probably the first time I've been able to say this so far this season but it's do or die," said Jacks coach Robbie Laird, whose third-place team is 4-5-1 in February.

Ever since he came to the Skipjacks in an offseason trade with Winnipeg, center Simon Wheeldon has preached the power of the power play.Never was its strength more evident than in last night's 5-2 win over the Halifax Citadels at the Arena.The Jacks (7-4-1) scored on three of their first five power plays in the opening period, with the line of John Purves, Craig Duncanson and Wheeldon landing all of the goals."When the specialty units are clicking like that, you win games," said Wheeldon, who has seven goals, five with the extra attacker.

Even if the Skipjacks had lost in Springfield, Mass., last night they wouldn't have come home losers.Even if they had fallen flat on their faces, which they appeared to be doing in the first period, behind by a pair of goals, Jacks coach Robbie Laird would have come back to Baltimore with a smile.But, as they have done so well during the past week, the road-weary Jacks fought back against the Northern Division leaders, getting a goal from defenseman Joel Quenneville with 8:53 remaining to earn a 5-5 tie."

The losses and the injuries continue to mount on the road for the Skipjacks.Last night's 3-2 loss to Cape Breton in Sydney, Nova Scotia, not only knocked the struggling Jacks out of first place in the Southern Division, but also knocked defenseman Mark Ferner and center Alfie Turcotte out of the lineup for tonight's game in Halifax."

Continuing their road assault last night in Newmarket, Ont., the Skipjacks are now not only looking like playoff shoo-ins, but a team that could make a run at the Calder Cup.Again it was the work of goalie Jim Hrivnak, who stopped 30 of 31 shots, that spurred the Jacks on to a 2-1 victory over the Saints."

The Food and Drug Administration said yesterday it will look into how caffeine in foods and snacks affects children. What spurred this? The FDA didn't say directly, but many people are pointing to a new "Alert Energy" gum by Wrigley that contains caffeine. The addictive ingredient is also showing up in other places, such as trail mix and jelly beans. Health experts have been worried for a while now about the effects of caffeine-packed energy drinks on children and anyone who might have heart issues.

John E. "Jack" Simms, a retired executive vice president whose career at American Credit Indemnity Co. spanned more than four decades, died Friday from complications of Alzheimer's disease at Stella Maris Hospice. He was 88. The son of a Methodist minister and a homemaker, John Elliott Simms was born in Surry, Va. He was raised in Delaware, Virginia and St. Mary's County, Md., where he graduated in 1940 from Margaret Brent High School in Helen. He moved to Baltimore and went to work as a fireman for the old Pennsylvania Railroad before enlisting in the Army Air Forces.

A Baltimore man whom police say appeared to be under the influence of alcohol was hit by a car and killed as he walked along Philadelphia Road in Joppa late Tuesday evening. The accident happened around 8 p.m. on Philadelphia Road (Route 7) between Mountain Road (Route 152) and Clayton Road, according to a Maryland State Police press release. Troopers said Jack Franklin Watson, 61, of the 2000 block of Frames Road in Baltimore, was walking in the westbound traffic lane of Philadelphia Road east of Mountain Road, wearing dark, non-reflective clothing, according to the release.

A portion of Friday's article on the improved play of No. 10 Loyola's defense centered on the progress that Jack Runkel has made. After recording a 8.57 goals-against average and a .504 save percentage in the team's first seven games, the junior goalkeeper has posted a 5.00 goals-against average and a .625 save percentage in his last three starts. Runkel said one factor in his recent performances has been a conscious effort to break a habit of standing too deep in the cage. The 6-foot-3, 250-pound Runkel takes up a lot of space, but he said that stepping out allows him to reduce the angle that opposing shooters have.

Jack Clark McDonogh, junior, 145 pounds It's hard to imagine a wrestler having a better season than Clark, who dominated the area and won the National Preps championship for a second straight time. The junior finished 45-4 this season, including 25 pins. Clark's career record in three years with the No. 1 Eagles is 138-15 with 69 pins, and he didn't lose a match to a local wrestler this season. Clark previously said one of his goals is to win four Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference championships in his high school career.

Seconds fly by in a lifetime and most ticks go unnoticed. But St. Paul's junior Jack Mutchnik will never forget the two seconds he enjoyed on the mat during the National Prep wrestling championships at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., on Saturday. Trailing, 4-3, to nationally ranked Judson Preskitt of Pennsylvania's Wyoming Seminary in the championship match of the 126-pound weight class with those two seconds remaining, Mutchnik scored a sudden takedown to earn a thrilling 5-4 decision.

Simply put, the difference came down to confidence.The Skipjacks came into last night's game winless in their last six. Adirondack had lost seven of 10, including the first two of a four-game trip.Both teams were preseason shoo-ins for playoff berths but are now struggling and fighting for their lives in the AHL Southern Division race."We've had our backs to the wall for a couple of weeks, hovering around fourth place," Red Wings coach Barry Melrose said. "They've been losing and we've been losing, too. I said to my guys before the game, 'Let's see how they play under pressure, knowing they might miss the playoffs.

On Tuesday, WWE, through  Brian Flinn , WWE's senior VP of marketing and communications, issued an email statement to the Hollywood Reporter concerning WWE superstar Jack Swagger and manager Zeb Colter. Several blogs, critics and media outlets have complained that the characters Swagger and Colter are portraying on WWE TV are "right wing racists. " One paragraph of WWE's statement reads as follows: “WWE is creating drama centered on a topical subject that has varying points of view to develop a rivalry between two characters.

I'll be the first to admit that I was definitely lukewarm about the main event match between CM Punk and The Rock at the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view. It wasn't a terrible match by any means. It wasn't terrific, either. Both men have had far more entertaining matches in WWE, but it must be said that both men did well given their limitations. What I mean by that is that The Rock, WWE champion, is a part-time worker of matches, so naturally, his "work rate" (as is the commonly used buzz word among the internet wrestling community)