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.

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.

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.

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!

Sweet running ad promotion.

The Raptors made quick work out of the Bulls despite playing their fourth game in five nights. T.J. Ford had 14 assists and Andrea Bargnani scored 14 points for Toronto, which had its largest win against Chicago in franchise history.

Andres Nocioni led Chicago with 20 points. Leading 41-30 at the half, the Raptors opened up the third quarter by outscoring the Bulls 14-1 for a 52-31 lead. Anthony Parker hit a 3 and Jamario Moon stole Luol Deng’s bad pass and took it for a breakaway dunk to give the Raptors a 21-point lead that started the boos from the sellout crowd.

Bulls coach Scott Skiles cleared his starters from the floor with 9:35 left in the third quarter, but it didn’t help as Parker immediately hit another 3 against the Chicago reserves. Chicago starters Luol Deng, Tyrus Thomas, Ben Wallace, Ben Gordon and Kirk Hinrich never returned to the game.

The Bulls came into the season with lofty expectations, but are 1-5 before beginning a six-game road trip on Thursday night at Phoenix. The vibe hasn’t been good in Chicago since the Bulls were involved in Kobe Bryant trade rumors less than two weeks ago. General manager John Paxson put to rest the Kobe Bryant trade rumors less than a week ago, but some fans continued to chant “Kobe! Kobe! Kobe!” while the Bulls were down 30-plus points in the third quarter.

Notes: Before Saturday’s game, the Raptors dropped 15 of their last 17 games against Chicago. … The restless Bulls fans started booing for most of the fourth quarter.

“I’ve never heard of that happening anywhere in the world,” Jim Woods, director of golf at the club said Thursday, a day after the dual aces were recorded on the club’s Banks Course. “Two balls on the same hole in the same group is pretty impressive.” Neither Brady nor Gerhart had ever made a hole-in-one before. The odds of a golfer scoring an ace are about 5,000-to-1. But the odds of two players in a foursome doing it are 17 million to 1, according to a Golf Digest article in 2000.

“To have two happen like that, back to back, is just unbelievable,” Brady said Thursday. Brady, 41, of Lopatcong, used a six-iron on the 179-yard seventh hole, a downhill par-3. It hit the green and rolled about 30 feet into the hole.

“Everybody was just high-fiving each other,” Gerhart said. Gerhart, 57, an electrical contractor from Point Pleasant, then made his ace with a five-iron after hitting to about 20 feet. “It landed on the green and started trickling toward the pin. I thought it was going to stop short, but it kept rolling,” he said.

“His ball hit in almost the same spot on the left side of the green and rolled to the hole,” Brady said. The group could not be sure the ball wasn’t behind the pin until they drove up to the hole, he said.

“It was just utterly incredible,” Gerhart said. “I’m just ecstatic when I stick the green and get a shot at par.” The U.S. Golf Association and the World Golf Hall of Fame had no immediate information on the frequency of back-to-back aces.

Gerhart described himself as a “weekend hacker” who plays 15 times a year. The ace contributed to a personal best score of 84. Brady, a skilled player with a 9.5 handicap, had a 79 on the par-71 layout, but even the pros find holes-in-one to be elusive. In June, Bruce Vaughn, a player on the Champions Tour, had two aces in two days this June, each on different holes at Eisenhower Park in East Meadow, N.Y.

Yusaku Miyazato recorded two holes-in-one during the same round at the Reno-Tahoe Open in 2006 in Nevada, which is believed to be only the second time that feat was ever done on the PGA Tour. Gerhart and Brady said they would save the scorecard and the balls. The foursome also included Thomas White, of Brick Township, and James Sydlo, of Edison.

The back-to-back aces were first reported in The Star-Ledger of Newark. Quite amazing if you ask me and I am glad you did.

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Ecko, 35, has set up a Web site that lets visitors vote on three options for the ball: give it to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, brand it with an asterisk before sending it to Cooperstown or blast it into space on a rocket ship. The asterisk would suggest that Bonds’ record is tainted by alleged steroid use. The Giants slugger has denied knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs.

“All of those options don’t weigh anything,” Bonds told the San Francisco Chronicle on Tuesday night in Phoenix. “In baseball, that number (756) stands.” Bonds said Ecko could have found a better way to spend three-quarters of a million dollars.

“He’s stupid. He’s an idiot,” Bonds said. “He spent $750,000 on the ball and that’s what he’s doing with it? What he’s doing is stupid.” Ecko did not directly respond to Bonds’ comments Wednesday, but said in a statement he would make Bonds a custom T-shirt that says, “Marc Ecko paid $752,467 for my ball, and all I got was this ’stupid’ T-shirt.”‘ Ecko plans to announce what he will do with No. 756 after voting ends Sept. 25.

Ben Padnos, the California entrepreneur who submitted the $186,750 winning bid on Bonds’ record-tying 755th home run ball, said Tuesday he also plans to have the public vote on what to do with it. I wonder if they can put an asterisk because a ball player is an asshole.