Penguins

WASHINGTON - After 65 minutes, still no one's hand was raised. Forget it. There's an easier way to settle this. No, not the game - though every time the Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals meet, the excitement and intensity results in some pretty good hockey. With the regular season winding down, the final matchup between the two teams was overshadowed by the battle between two men - Alex the Great and Sid the Kid. The young superstars Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby have been anointed to carry the NHL on their collective shoulders to new heights.

Moves Baseball BLUE JAYS -- Named Gary Denbo hitting coach. BREWERS -- Fired third base coach Nick Leyva. GIANTS -- Retained bench coach Ron Wotus, pitching coach Dave Righetti, bullpen coach Mark Gardner and bullpen catcher Bill Hayes. Fired hitting coach Joe Lefebvre and first base coach Willie Upshaw. TIGERS -- Exercised 2008 contract option on C Ivan Rodriguez. WHITE SOX -- Hired Buddy Bell as director of minor league instruction. Basketball 76ERS -- Waived C Shagari Alleyne.

PALMER ARCHIPELAGO, Antarctica - Dorothy's right. This is definitely not Kansas anymore. Flung by the sea, I've sailed into the Land of Awes.To both starboard and port, mountainous islands rip skyward, jutting from water that defines navy blue. Only the sharpest, most jagged ridges expose daggers of anvil-black rock. Thick mantles of glacial ice smother the rest, concealing summits and slopes beneath mounds of glistening white.Inspiring as they seem, these ocean-piercing Everests are but the first fragments of the last land on earth.

BaseballAngels: Acquired IF Craig Shipley from Cardinals for IF Chip Hale. Designated IF Robert Eenhoorn for assignment.Mariners: Announced that P Jose Paniagua cleared waivers and was outrighted to Triple-A Tacoma.Twins: Signed P Hector Carrasco to one-year contract.BasketballBucks: Released F Jeff Nordgaard. Activated G Terrell Brandon from injured list.Spurs: Signed C Brad Lohaus to 10-day contract.CollegeCal State Fullerton: Renewed contract of men's basketball coach Bob Hawking.Clemson: Named Ed Kohtala men's restricted-earnings basketball coach.

Tonight: Penguins at Red Wings. The Penguins, 0-2 against Detroit last season, face Niklas Lidstrom, Steve Yzerman and the Red Wings. The Red Wings have 57 goals this season.Sitting out: Carolina goalie Sean Burke was removed from Wednesday night's lineup against Detroit, but the move was described as a hockey decision rather than one related to his being charged Sunday with beating his wife. Burke, 0-4-3 this season, could play by week's end.Suspended: Florida coach Doug MacLean served the first game of his two-game suspension Wednesday night for running toward referee Dennis LaRue following a 4-3 overtime loss to Buffalo last Saturday.

The Pittsburgh Penguins will go for the knockout punch today in Round 6 -- make that Game 6 -- of the NHL Eastern Conference quarterfinal with the Washington Capitals.The Penguins have a 3-2 lead in the series after a rough, 4-1 triumph in Pittsburgh on Friday night. Game 6 is 3 p.m. today at USAir Arena in Landover. Game 7, if necessary, will be in Pittsburgh on Tuesday night."For us, it's do or die," said Capitals goalie Olie Kolzig. "We're going to come out hungry and determined to win that hockey game no matter what it takes."

LANDOVER -- So, you thought this Eastern Conference quarterfinal series would be a sweep? In the Washington Capitals-Pittsburgh Penguins series? Not these two. These two love going at it over the long haul. It's the way they play the game.For two games, the Capitals, with tremendous team play and goaltending from Olie Kolzig, made Pittsburgh pay for its defensive lapses and cockiness.But last night, the Penguins had no lapses and Penguins goalie Tom Barrasso (38 saves) came within a Sylvain Cote shot from the point on the team's 10th power play of collecting his fifth postseason shutout with a 4-1 victory.

PITTSBURGH -- The Washington Capitals did the near-impossible last night in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup's Eastern Conference quarterfinals.Without eight key players because of injuries, Washington fell behind the high-scoring Pittsburgh Penguins by three goals and saw its starting goaltender, Jim Carey, chased from his net with 8: 51 to go in the second period.Washington's response to all this adversity was to put Olie Kolzig in goal and rally for a 6-4 victory, scoring five unanswered goals over the final 24 minutes.

Certainly there have been overtime NHL games with more on the line, but perhaps none was more enthralling than the one the Washington Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins engaged in Wednesday night in Game 4 of the NHL Eastern Conference quarterfinals.It was a game between supposedly mismatched talent. Yet neither team could end it until, finally, with 45 seconds left in the fourth overtime -- the third-longest game in NHL history -- the Penguins won, 3-2, on Petr Nedved's screened shot. The puck passed Caps goalie Olie Kolzig sight unseen.

LANDOVER -- The Washington Capitals, it seems, spent a lot of time playing the ghost of Mario Lemieux yesterday. Finally, after two periods and trailing 2-1, someone noticed that the legendary No. 66 wasn't among the Pittsburgh Penguins cast but was back home with the flu.The Caps came out of the locker room in overdrive. Just 31 seconds after the resumption of play, Calle Johansson had a goal, tying the score.Six minutes and 10 shots later, Stefan Ustorf tapped in a rebound to put Washington in front on its way to a 4-2 victory, its sixth straight at USAir Arena.

St. Louis has come a long way since America's first World's Fair and Olympics were held there in 1904. The vibrant city offers outdoor activity and green space within the urban landscape, with bike trails, nature reserves and more than 100 parks. St. Louis also abounds with culture, music and history, as it once served as a crossing point for people migrating from the East to the West Coast. Here are five things to do: 1 Enter the Arch : No image of St. Louis is complete without the tallest man-made monument in the United States, the Gateway Arch.

WASHINGTON - Before the start of this second-round series, it didn't seem possible that the match could possibly live up to the hype that had been heaped upon it, despite its considerable star power and the postseason history between two bitter rivals. But after the Washington Capitals' 4-3 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins Monday night before a manic crowd at Verizon Center, a tense, thriller of a game punctuated by hat tricks for both Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby, that's exactly what's happening.

WASHINGTON - After 65 minutes, still no one's hand was raised. Forget it. There's an easier way to settle this. No, not the game - though every time the Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals meet, the excitement and intensity results in some pretty good hockey. With the regular season winding down, the final matchup between the two teams was overshadowed by the battle between two men - Alex the Great and Sid the Kid. The young superstars Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby have been anointed to carry the NHL on their collective shoulders to new heights.

Red Wings @Penguins 8 p.m. [Chs. 11, 4] Detroit leads the series 3-2, but Pittsburgh staved off elimination Monday night with a 4-3 road victory in triple overtime. The Penguins tied the score in regulation with 35 seconds left. Now, they will try to extend the series to a seventh game.

As shots go, the ones provided by the Pittsburgh Penguins' Max Talbot and Petr Sykora on Monday night were shots in the arm for the NHL in general, even if they left the Detroit Red Wings smarting. Thanks to Talbot's game-tying goal with 35 seconds left in regulation and Sykora's winner from the right circle on a power play in the third overtime, the NHL will keep skating for at least one more game. The Penguins-Red Wings Stanley Cup Finals move back to Pittsburgh for Game 6 tonight with Detroit leading 3-2. The importance of extending the series is in no small way attached to TV ratings, a huge consideration in the pro sports universe.

With Alex Ovechkin on one side and Jaromir Jagr on the other, no one expected Mike Green and Joe Motzko to steal the show. Green scored 3:41 into overtime after posting two assists in regulation, Motzko had his first two goals of the season, and the host Washington Capitals beat the New York Rangers, 5-4, last night. The winning goal was scored after New York's Brendan Shanahan stumbled and fell to the ice in the Capitals zone, allowing Brooks Laich to steal the puck and head the other way on an odd-man rush.

Moves Baseball BLUE JAYS -- Named Gary Denbo hitting coach. BREWERS -- Fired third base coach Nick Leyva. GIANTS -- Retained bench coach Ron Wotus, pitching coach Dave Righetti, bullpen coach Mark Gardner and bullpen catcher Bill Hayes. Fired hitting coach Joe Lefebvre and first base coach Willie Upshaw. TIGERS -- Exercised 2008 contract option on C Ivan Rodriguez. WHITE SOX -- Hired Buddy Bell as director of minor league instruction. Basketball 76ERS -- Waived C Shagari Alleyne.

The majesty and poignancy of March of the Penguins hasn't dimmed in memory, but good intentions kill great footage in Arctic Tale, this North Pole follow-up that chronicles the life cycles of polar bears and walruses in an age of global warming. It should give comedian Stephen Colbert's liberal-hating, bear-phobic persona on The Colbert Report enough material for a year's worth of "Threatdowns" and "Wags of the Finger." Directors Adam Ravetch and Sarah Robertson capture images that are astonishing in intimacy and action.

These days, when a commercial promises "From the (blank) that brought you (blank)," it's usually a trouble sign. The most blatant recent case of buyer-beware advertising came when Sony said that Daddy Day Camp came "From the studio that brought you Daddy Day Care." In reality, the comedy's producers chose to keep the characters -- played in the original by Eddie Murphy and Jeff Garlin -- but had to recast the roles. Trying to sell franchises by proxy, marketers invariably give fans inferior knockoffs of popular phenomena.

Ready for March of the Penguins: The Musical? That, at least, is what Happy Feet aspires to be. But a musical version of last year's surprise documentary hit would need to be far better than this animated effort, a wan, ultimately tedious affair that spends half its time on some heavy-handed moralizing, the other half in the mistaken belief that people can never get enough of singing penguins. Hey, I love singing fowl as much as the next guy, and what better bird to have belting-out tunes than the ones who come with their own ready-made tuxedoes?