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Yes Mr Savard, you’re table is ready. No, Mr Melrose has not arrived yet, but we expect him any moment…8.07pm tonight Josh Beckett attempts to redeem himself, after his Game Two flop, for the surging (?) BoSox. This time I am staying up until the final out…after dropping their first two home games, to the Leafs and Canucks, a wag quipped on the SI site yesterday that the Red Wings are tanking the season to get a shot at John Tavares…tremendous entertainment value in last nights Rangers-Leafs OT tie (sorry, I turn the TV off after 65 minutes, I don’t watch or care about a breakaway contest), ramped up by an energetic call from Joe Bowen. After three successive clangs from the posts behind Vesa Toskala, the Leaf announcer cried, “The bells of St Mary’s are ringing”…the Rangers opted to keep goaltending ace Henrik Lundqvist fresh for tonight’s big showdown in Motown. Back-up Steve Valiquette has eleven career victories, with three of them coming against the Buds…the Leafs are attempting to trade blue liner Ian White. Multi million dollar off season acquisition Jeff Fingers should join the Buds lineup this week and they need to offload a D-Man…the Blue Jackets went out and acquired Kristian Huselius, a playmaker, for Rick Nash. The results absolutely bear watching as they looked unstoppable last night. Columbus beat Predators 5-3 with Huselius setting up Nash for two goals…think the Sabres are for real, think the Senators are not…the Cowboys follow tomorrow’s match with the Rams by meeting the Bucs, Giants and Redskins. It explains their embarrassing determination to have Tony Romo start Sunday despite a broken pinkie. They really need the win…intriguing fight from Atlantic City tonight. Kelly Pavlik is -400 while the cagey old coot, Bernard Hopkins, is a healthy +325. Y’know, this fight feels like a trap. Pavlik has been forced to incessantly focus on whether he’ll become the first man to knock out Hopkins. That is a distraction and could lead to overconfidence in the approach and tactics of the Pavlik camp. Hopkins is far too dangerous for these types of specious debates, so I’ll take the plus and hope for a close decision…now, a joke from Dale Earnhardt Junior. Why is this current economic meltdown worse than a divorce? B/c you’ve lost half of everything but still have your wife…NASCAR visits tiny Martinsville tomorrow. The.526 of a mile shoebox has been dominated by, who else, Jimmy Johnson. He’s taken three of the last four races at the track…gave the Breeders Cup entries my first once over this morning and was struck by an anomaly. While buoyed by a rich and varied assortment of invaders, the reality is that many of them are posers, or second raters, and there’ll be real opportunity in focusing on the relatively few A-listers starting at Santa Anita. Goldikova and Raven’s Pass could compete on any course on any day. As we scroll down the entries, however, I encounter many I have stood against at Leopardstown and the Curragh, and will surely draw a line through again this weekend…we scorched Woodbine yesterday, winning with three of our four selections. The one loser was second, edged at the wire, even as we implored the jock for a more patient ride…the big day covered maybe half of the cost of our Madonna tickets (I mentioned eighth row, right?) and we’ll pass on today’s card…