Madison Square Garden

Tundra's favorite things are animal crackers, kissing, liver and her owners Ed, Jenna and Christopher Lipnickas, not necessarily in that order. If she suspects an animal cracker is nearby, a little frown of anxiety appears on her broad forehead, between her triangular velvet ears, and she gazes up with unblinking, warm, brown eyes and cocks her head.She gets a lot of crackers this way.Tundra is a show dog. Her formal name is American Canadian Champion Northstar's Polar Express, and she's dozing in the back of a van as it rolls through darkness from Dundalk to New York City.

Opponent: New York KnicksSite: Madison Square Garden, New YorkTime: 7:30TV/Radio: Ch. 50/WWLG (1360 AM), WTEM (570 AM)Outlook: Tonight's game begins perhaps the most important stretch of the season for the Bullets, who will play four straight -- and 11 of their next 15 -- away from home. Washington has played well at home (16-7), but is 6-15 on the road. Six of their past seven road games have been losses, including four straight. Washington has dropped 11 straight in New York, and the Bullets haven't won a game at Madison Square Garden since Jan. 31, 1991.

NEW YORK -- Oscar De La Hoya last night raised the ghosts of lightweight legends Benny Leonard, Henry Armstrong, Barney Ross, Beau Jack, Ike Williams and Roberto Duran, who once graced the ring at Madison Square Garden.Boxing's new golden boy from the east Los Angeles barrio earned his right to be mentioned in this elite company when he scored a spectacular second-round knockout of Jesse James Leija of San Antonio.Leija's chief trainer tossed in the towel after his fighter was floored twice in the second round of the scheduled 12-round match for De La Hoya's World Boxing Organization 135-pound title.

First baseman Don Mattingly said Monday night that he believes the 1995 season will be his last with the New York Yankees.Mattingly, 34, made the comments during an interview with Madison Square Garden Network."

LAS VEGAS -- Imagine Riddick Bowe and Mike Tyson, two tough heavyweights from the same Brownsville neighborhood in Brooklyn, meeting each other in the richest boxing match in history this November at Madison Square Garden. The fighters and the promotion would net a guaranteed minimum of $120 million from a Garden crowd of 20,000 fans paying an average of $1,000 per seat and from a pay-per-view audience of at least 2 million homes.That scenario is not a figment of Rock Newman's imagination.

Opponent: Montreal CanadiensSite: Montreal ForumTime: 7:30TV/Radio: Ch. 20/WMAL (630 AM)Outlook: Montreal is 0-1-0 after losing to the New York Rangers, 5-2, at Madison Square Garden on Saturday night, and already has faced questions concerning its offense. "There's no question we've got to work on scoring," said team captain Kirk Muller. This is Montreal's home opener, and the team anticipates a sellout. Neither team reports any injuries.

Rock fans in New York are a tough, dedicated bunch. They have figured out how to snap up tickets for concerts that sell out the day they're announced. They adapt to great variations between announced and actual show times; they brave frisking, metal detectors, overcrowded halls, belligerent bouncers and exorbitant drink prices.Just about every band in the known universe looks forward to a showcase in New York, where audiences are both discerning and diverse. But where will they play? Often, at places that would be outshone by the dives back home.

NEW YORK -- Mike Tyson and Riddick Bowe grew up on the same mean streets of Brownsville, a wasteland of drugs and broken dreams in the borough of Brooklyn. Their homes were separated by only a few city blocks, but, in spirit, the two were worlds apart.Bowe, then an aspiring amateur boxer priming for the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea, remembers Tyson, at 21, returning to his old neighborhood as the new heavyweight champion of the world.Known in the 'hood as "Bummy Ike," Tyson confronted Bowe, 14 months his junior, during his roadwork around a public swimming pool.

NEW YORK -- You want a people's champ? Here he comes.Riddick Bowe makes his first title defense Saturday night in a homecoming bout at Madison Square Garden, and that's just the start.Bowe's manager, Rock Newman, said yesterday that he wants the heavyweight champion to fight Larry Holmes at RFK Stadium in August -- with tickets distributed free of charge.Of course, Bowe must defeat Michael Dokes on Saturday and then Ray Mercer on May 21 for the Holmes fight to happen. And, this being boxing, about 400 other things could get in the way.Still, Newman is serious about staging the first heavyweight championship bout in Washington since Joe Louis beat Buddy Baer in 1941 -- a fight in which Louis got knocked through the ropes.

When the Democrats convene in Madison Square Garden today,they will return to the site of the last convention in which they nominated a winner -- and to the namesake of the hall in which they experienced their most horrendous conclave.In 1976, the Democrats gathered in the Garden to nominate former Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter, culminating his phenomenal rise from obscurity to the pinnacle of American politics. In 1980, they returned to the Garden to renominate him, which given the rise in Mr. Carter's reputation due to his exemplary endeavors as an ex-president, is looking like a wiser decision than it appeared at the time.