IceDogs Awarded 2008 ADT Canada Russia Challenge Game

The Niagara IceDogs announced today that the Ontario Hockey League has awarded them the right to be the Eastern Conference host site for the 2008 ADT Canada Russia challenge series. The game will take place at the Gatorade Garden City complex in St Catharines on Monday, November 24th and will be broadcasted nationally on Rogers Sportsnet.


Ticket pricing for the event will be $30 for premiums, $25 for ends and $20 for standing. All IceDogs season ticket holders will have first right of refusal on their seats for the game with any additional tickets opened up to the general public via a lottery system. Further details regarding ticket availability and lottery procedures to follow in September.

"We believe that this game is going to be another great event for the hockey fans of the Niagara Region" said IceDogs owner Bill Burke. "Being awarded this opportunity is a testament to our fans and the tremendous support we have received since arriving in St. Catharines. The history of Canada/Russia hockey goes back to the infamous Summit Series of 1972 and we are very proud and excited with the opportunity to provide our fans with such an incredible event."

"On behalf of the Canadian Hockey League, I'd like to thank our partners at ADT for their support of this event," said CHL President David Branch. "The Canadian Hockey League is very excited to host this series and without corporate support it wouldn't be possible. The participating CHL players recognize that the ADT Canada/Russia Challenge is the final step in the evaluation process for our National Junior Team and will be anxious for the opportunity to compete for a spot on the roster as Canada targets its fifth consecutive gold medal this winter in Ottawa ."

"The ADT Canada/Russia Challenge has become a highlight on the CHL schedule and we are very proud to be associated with it. These two nations have such a storied hockey history that fans from across the country tune in expecting to see a hard fought series. We expect nothing short of world class hockey this November that hockey fans from across the country won't want to miss," said Joe O'Connell, ADT Regional Vice-President - Canada.

In existence since 2003, the challenge consists of six exhibition games in which a team of Russian Junior all-stars will compete against CHL all-stars representing each of the three regional leagues. All-star squads from the OHL, Western Hockey League, and Quebec Major Junior Hockey League will each play and host two games against the Russians, with the OHL splitting their host sites between an Eastern and Western Conference team.

Despite pulling off wins in both games last season, the OHL all-stars faced a strong test against a much improved Russian team which finished with a 2-3-0-1 record overall. The first game was especially difficult as the Russian team walked out to 2-0 and 3-2 leads before the OHL squad battled back for a come-from-behind 5-3 victory. Game 2 in Ontario turned out to be an equally difficult match as team OHL held on to a one-goal lead through most of the game before picking up an insurance marker late in the third to put the game out of reach.

The OHL player representatives will be chosen in late October with all non-overage, Canadian-born players eligible to compete. Hockey Canada will play a role in the selection process and will evaluate players throughout the series in preparation of the final selection process for the 2009 World Junior championships. Last season, the IceDogs were represented at this event by Luca Caputi, Stefan Legein, Alex Pietrangelo, and Matt Corrente.

Bolt Gives Puma a Big Boost

As Usain Bolt held up one of his gold-decked running shoes for the cameras after his historic 100m victory, the Jamaican sprinter struck a blow in another battle for supremacy.

Bolt's domination of his rivals fulfilled his pre-race tag as favourite, but for Puma, the German sportswear manufacturer whose Theseus II spikes he was wearing, it was a triumph for an underdog.

Puma came to Beijing nowhere near rivals Nike and Adidas in terms of market value and sales, trailing in the number of Olympic athletes contracted to wear its apparel, and behind in the race for a share of the lucrative Chinese market.

But Puma does have Bolt, who goes for two more golds this week. The sight of the fastest man alive lapping up the crowd's adulation in what may have been the most watched sporting moment of the most watched sporting event of the year gives the company the kind of marketing kick that will have had its rivals quietly fuming.

The 100m final was billed as a showdown between Bolt, his fellow Jamaican Asafa Powell and Tyson Gay, the US world champion, who failed to qualify for the race. But with Bolt signed to Puma, Powell with Nike and Gay with Adidas, it was more than just a running race. "It was a great allusion to the footwear wars," says Larry Eder, who runs Running Network, an athletics website.

The reasoning goes that the company with the most athletes on its books gets the most medals and therefore the better marketing opportunities. Not necessarily so, says Joerg Sobel, Puma's general manager in the Asia Pacific region. "You don't have to have the biggest number of athletes, you have to have the right ones."

As a driver of sportswear sales, the Olympic 100m final is on a level above most other sporting events and, according to Mr Eder, there was "a huge battle" between Puma and Nike to sign up the current crop of talented Jamaican sprinters.

"Puma had the Jamaican federation [signed up], but most of the individual athletes signed up to Nike," he says. "The only athlete Puma kept was Bolt."

Bolt's victory is the second blow at these games for Adidas and Nike. They began with the thrilling sight of Li Ning, China's former Olympic champion gymnast, circling the roof of the Bird's Nest stadium and lighting the Olympic flame.

It was more chilling than thrilling for Adidas, official Olympic sponsor and linked to Yao Ming, China's 7ft 5in basketball star, and Nike, as they watched Li, the founder of the eponymous Chinese sportswear company, pulling off one of the more brazen acts in the history of ambush marketing.

Privately, Adidas executives sniff at Puma's good fortune. "This industry is a two-horse race, and in China it's a two-horse race for market leadership," said one executive. Still, Jan Runau of Adidas agrees it would love to have signed Bolt. They had Gay instead. "That's what you get with sport," he says.

Nike has deals with 22 Chinese Olympic teams, and promotes Liu Xiang, China's big hope in the 110m hurdles. It has been pouring resources into signing budding talent, but as Charlie Brooks of Nike says: "You have to hope that they can live up to their talent."

Powell was last week modelling his Nike Zoom Aerofly spikes. On Saturday, he finished fifth, a long, long way behind Bolt.

Source: Financial Times

Bestselling Sports and Recreation Books in Canada

This week’s bestseller listings cover the top 20 sports and recreation titles for the two weeks ending Aug. 10, 2008, as tracked by BookNet Canada’s BNC SalesData.

1. Becoming the Natural, Randy Couture
(Simon & Schuster, $29.99 cl, 9781416957805)

2. Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer
(Anchor/Random House, $16.95 pa, 9780385494786)

3. The Water Boy, Bobby Ackles
(John Wiley & Sons, $21.95 pa, 9780470155912)

4. Best Hikes and Walks of Southwestern British Columbia, Dawn Hanna
(Lone Pine Publishing, $21.95 pa, 9781551054551)

5. McCown’s Law: The 100 Greatest Hockey Arguments, Bob McCown
(Doubleday Canada, $19.95 pa, 9780385664653)

6. The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding, Arnold Schwarzenegger
(Simon & Schuster, $32 pa, 9780684857213)

7. We Might As Well Win, Johan Bruyneel and Bill Strickland
(Houghton Mifflin/Thomas Allen & Son, $27.95 cl, 9780618879373)

8. Iceman: My Fighting Life, Chuck Liddell
(Dutton/Penguin, $28.50 cl, 9780525950561)

9. 2008 NFL Record and Fact Book
(Time/H.B. Fenn and Company, $19.95 pa, 9781603207706)

10. Golf for Dummies, Gary McCord
(John Wiley & Sons, $23.99 pa, 9780471768715)

11. Golf: Visual Quick Tips, Cheryl Anderson, Brian A. Crowell, and Tom Mackin
(John Wiley & Sons, $15.99 pa, 9780470182666)

12. A Champion’s Mind, Pete Sampras
(Crown/Random House, $27.95 cl, 9780307383297)

13. How Tiger Does It, Brad Kearns
(McGraw-Hill, $21.95 cl, 9780071545648)

14. SAS Survival Handbook, John Wiseman
(HarperCollins, $29.95 pa, 9780007158997)

15. The Complete Book of the Olympics, Jaime Loucky and David Wallechinsky
(Aurum Press/Fitzhenry & Whiteside, $29.95 pa, 9781845133306)

16. Golf: The Best Instruction Book Ever!
(Time/H.B. Fenn and Company, $32.95 cl, 9781603200011)

17. Hockey Tough, Saul L. Miller
(Human Kinetics, $21.95 pa, 9780736051231)

18. Bicycle Repair Manual, Chris Sidwells
(Dorling Kindersley, $17 pa, 9780756633943)

19. Tales from Q School, John Feinstein
(Little, Brown/H.B. Fenn and Company, $17.99 pa, 9780316014328)

20. The Boy Camper: 160 Outdoor Activities
(Hearst Books, $11.95 cl, 9781588167033)

Beijing Police Crackdown on Ticket Scalping

Beijing police arrested 110 people, including foreigners, in a crackdown on ticket scalping for Olympic events.

The police seized 340 tickets while making the arrests yesterday, Xinhua reported, citing Shi Weiping, an officer with the Beijing Public Security Bureau. A Chinese woman was caught selling two gymnastics tickets with a face value of 150 yuan ($22) each for 1,000 yuan apiece, Shi said. A Dutch national was also selling 24 tickets for 10 times their face value near the National Aquatic Center, he added.

Olympic organizers said on Aug. 11 that they were pressing for a clampdown on illegal ticket sales, as scalpers were operating just yards from police. A total of 7 million tickets were put on sale for the Aug. 8-24 games. Three-quarters of them were offered locally, all of which sold out.

The Beijing police are setting up bilingual placards near Olympic venues to warn against ticket scalping, state-run Xinhua said. Offenders could be detained for 10 to 15 days, it added.

Source: Bloomberg, Xinhua

Becancour, Quebec to Host First World Boxing Academy

The International Boxing Association on Monday chose Becancour, Que., to host the sport's first world academy.

The city of about 12,000 across the St. Lawrence river from Trois-Rivieres, Que., beat Podolsk, Russia, 18-10 in a secret ballot of members of the world governing body's executive committee in Beijing.

The academy will train the best young amateur boxers and coaches from the 195 national federations that make up AIBA. Referees, judges and boxing administrators will also study there.

Some will stay full-time, including 50 resident students on International Olympic Committee scholarships, while others will come in for shorter stays to attend training camps or workshops.

"We now have taken a significant step in a project which will lift the standards across all areas of boxing," AIBA president Ching-Kuo Wu said.

Podolsk, near Moscow, will host a second academy if the first is a success.

Around 750 fighters aged from 17 to 34 will be trained each year at Becancour and educated in fitness, nutrition and anti-doping classes.

The academy is expected to operate on an annual budget of more than $5 million managed by the world body and Canada's national Olympic committee.

The project was promoted by AIBA president Wu after he was elected in 2006. The Taiwanese promised to modernize and clean up amateur boxing.

New Sponsorship Deal for Manchester United

Saudi Telecom has agreed to a five year sponsorship deal with Manchester United.

Under the deal, Saudi Telecom will be known as the official mobile communications partner of Manchester United in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and has exclusive access to unique mobile phone content, including video highlights of goals and match footage, ringtones, text and news alerts.

David Gill, chief executive of Manchester United, said: “Manchester United is delighted to announce a new five year partnership with Saudi Telecom, the largest telecommunications company in the Middle East. Our match earlier this year in Riyadh demonstrated the passion our Saudi fans have for Manchester United and we believe this ground breaking partnership will bring the action of Manchester United direct to our millions of fans across Saudi Arabia”.

The partnership will run through to the end of June 2013.

Former Canadian Sprinter Johnson Sues Ex-Lawyer

Former Olympic sprinter Ben Johnson has filed a C$37 million ($34.9 million) lawsuit in Canada against the estate of his former lawyer for allegedly stealing his wealth and failing to protect future earnings, the Toronto Star newspaper reported on Friday.

Johnson claims the late Ed Futerman made unauthorized payments from his trust account to pay bills and 20 per cent commissions to a hairdresser who was recruited by the lawyer to act as the sprinter's sports agent, the Star reported.

The suit also claims Futerman ought to have known that Johnson was incapable of understanding complex legal documents since psychiatric experts hired by the lawyer -- and paid for by Johnson -- concluded in February 1989 that "there is overwhelming evidence that Mr. Johnson is intellectually retarded," the newspaper reported. The allegations have not been proved in court.

Johnson enjoyed a high-profile career in the 1980s and made headlines for his world-record 100 metre win at the Seoul Olympic Games. However, days after the race, he tested positive for the banned steroid stanozolol and was stripped of his gold medal.

Lawyer Michael Kestenberg, whose client died this year, said Futerman's estate and insurers "will be fighting this vehemently. They do not believe there is any truth to any of the allegations."

The newspaper reported that when it contacted Johnson, he said he had been advised by his current lawyer not to comment.