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Do any of you remember the Seinfeld espisode, The Calzone?  In it Kramer paid back someone Jerry owned money to in Pennies!!  It was very funny.  Anyways it seems that Ken Griffey Jr. pulled the same stunt when he paid back some money he owed Cincinnati Reds teammate Josh Fogg, $1,500.

So when Fogg arrived in the Reds clubhouse Wednesday, he found his locker filled with 150,000 pennies. They were packed up in 60 boxes, each weighing around fifteen pounds and containing $25 worth of pennies.

Neither player would say why Griffey owed Fogg the money. Griffey had threatened to pay it off in pennies, but Fogg didn’t believe him. Rumor has it that it is from a beer chugging bet Fogg lost on their last road trip. “I’m going to take them out to the bullpen and count them,” Fogg said. “I’ve got a lot of time on my hands out there.”

Andrei Kostitsyn scored two goals and rookie sensatiion Carey Price posted a 25-save shutout to put the Montreal Canadiens and their ear-splitting fans into the second round of the NHL playoffs with a 5-0 victory over the Boston Bruins on Monday night.

The Canadiens won the best-of-seven Eastern Conference quarter-final 4-3, improving their record against the rival Bruins all-time in playoff series to 24-7.  Mike Komisarek, Mark Streit and Sergei Kostitsyn also scored for Montreal, which is now 5-2 in playoff Game 7s against Boston and 11-8 overall.

Instead, Price played brilliantly to post his second shutout of the series and the Canadiens remained unbeaten at 27-0 when leading a series by 3-1.  Canadiens coach Guy Carbonneau, now 3-0 when wearing his lucky psychedelic tie, came up with a surprise, putting struggling winger Alex Kovalev on captain Saku Koivu’s line with Christopher Higgins and it produced the first goal 3:31 into the game.

Kovalev ragged the puck a long moment before feeding to Komisarek on the left point for a shot that changed direction after hitting Petteri Nokelainen’s stick in the slot, leaving Tim Thomas no chance for the save.  The rest of the hard-hitting first frame was all Boston, but Price made a smart stop on Marc Savard from point blank among a handful of good saves.

Streit came off the bench to take the puck, put it through big defenceman Zdeno Chara’s legs, collect it on the other side and deke Thomas between the pads 10:45 into the second frame.  Moments later, Price made his best save as he moved across the crease to thwart Marco Sturm on a 2-on-1 with Phil Kessel. From then on, the Bruins looked out of fuel and the Canadiens played with more and more confidence.

A Chara holding penalty had just ended when Andrei Kostitsyn took a pass from his brother Sergei in the slot and got a difficult shot off with the puck at his feet that beat Thomas to the glove side at 15:13.  The noise from the 21,273 singing, screaming, towel-twirling fans was deafening as the Canadiens killed off three penalties early in the third and their first trip to the second round since 2004 became apparent.

Andrei Kostitsyn added his second of the night on a power play with 2:02 left to play - only the third goal with the man advantage by Montreal in 33 chances in the series and Sergei Kostitsyn got another with eight seconds left in the game Kovalev is now 6-0 in career Game 7s. Boston’s Game 7 record dropped to 9-8, including 0-4 on the road.

Notes - Boston veteran Glen Murray left the game in the first period with what the team called a mid-torso injury after he was run into the boards by Roman Hamrlik. . . Neither team made changes, so Ryan O’Byrne, Michael Ryder and Guillaume Latendresse sat out for Montreal and Andrew Alberts and Jeremy Reich didn’t dress for Boston. A huge win for all Montreal fans.

Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger agreed to one of the richest contract in Pittsburgh Steelers history on Monday. The eight-year deal is worth $102 million US and includes $36 million in guarantees, placing Roethlisberger among the National Football League’s highest-paid players.

Roethlisberger, 26, would join fellow signal-callers Peyton Manning, Brett Favre, Carson Palmer, Donovan McNabb and the suspended Michael Vick in the $100-million club. An Ohio native, Roethlisberger led the Steelers to a Super Bowl victory two years ago — the youngest quarterback to achieve the feat — and was the 11th overall pick in the 2004 draft. He has started in all four seasons with the team.

Last season, he threw a team-record 32 touchdown passes with only 11 interceptions in leading Pittsburgh to a 10-6 record and an AFC North title, bouncing back from a 2006 season marred by a motorcycle accident and an appendectomy. Roethlisberger’s Pro Bowl season also included a 65 per cent completion rate and a 104.1 efficiency rating.  In my opinion this guy is worth every penny.

Former major leaguer Chuck Knoblauch carried his toddler son in his arms on his way out after speaking for about 1 1/2 hours Friday with congressional lawyers investigating drugs in baseball.

Accompanied by his wife and a lawyer, Knoblauch did not reveal specifics of what he was asked or what he told staff members from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Knoblauch was among more than 80 baseball players cited in former Senate majority leader George Mitchell’s report on drug use in the sport. Asked after leaving the interview whether there were questions about himself or other baseball players, Knoblauch replied, “I only know about myself.”  His lawyer, Diana Marshall, said: “Everything was fine. He answered all the questions.”

Knoblauch’s closed-door interview was part of the committee’s preparation for a Feb. 13 hearing. That public session is expected to focus on Roger Clemens’ denial of allegations in the Mitchell Report made by Brian McNamee, the pitcher’s former personal trainer. McNamee said he injected Clemens with performance-enhancing substances.

Knoblauch is a former teammate of Clemens’ on the New York Yankees, and McNamee told Mitchell he injected Knoblauch with human growth hormone.

Knoblauch, a four-time All-Star who played for the Twins, Yankees and Royals, ended his major league career in 2002. He agreed Monday to speak to the committee after initially failing to respond to an invitation to testify.   I wonder if folks are really suprised at the high level of steriod and human growth hormone (HGH) use in a sport that awards multi-million dollar contracts to the players with the best stats.

O.J. Simpson filed court papers seeking dismissal of half the charges against him, saying prosecutors in Nevada failed to meet legal standards to prosecute him for kidnapping, robbery and conspiracy, his lawyer said.

Grasso filed court papers Thursday claiming prosecutors didn’t meet the evidentiary standards to prosecute the former football star on six of the 12 charges against him.

“They’re charging O.J. with … the specific intent to commit robbery,” Grasso said, citing Nevada law underlying the felony charge of robbery. “He wasn’t stealing from somebody else. He was taking back something that was his.”

Simpson, 60, is accused of leading five other men in the gunpoint robbery of two memorabilia dealers who were peddling collectibles associated with Simpson, including the suit he wore the day he was acquitted in the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman.

Simpson has denied any knowledge of guns being involved in the confrontation. He has said he intended only to retrieve items that had been stolen from him by a former agent.

Grasso said Simpson would fight the other six charges against him at his trial, set to begin April 7. Those counts include burglary, coercion and assault with a deadly weapon.

District Judge Jackie Glass has set a Feb. 21 deadline for prosecutors to respond and a March 7 hearing on motions in the case.  Charles Ehrlich, Clarence Stewart are being tried with Simpson; three former co-defendants have pleaded guilty.  Stewart and Ehrlich have also challenged some of the charges and Ehrlich’s attorneys have asked the judge to separate his trial from Simpson’s.

Simpson, Stewart and Ehrlich are all free on bond after pleading not guilty to all charges.  Basically it sucks to be Simpson!

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