outlining a few suggestions for the NHL Network and their executives to help breathe life into TV schedule. For anyone who is even remotely interested, it’s definitely worthwhile to read Gover’s article in its entirety; he has more than a few ideas and strategies towards implementing the vision. One idea he has is to have something like a “Director’s Cut” you may see on a DVD or Blu-Ray for the rebroadcasts aired in the offseason. It’s a great way to help liven up any replays the network chooses to run:

Having trouble finding a home, and rightly so. This kid has been given way too many chances to perform in the NHL and has failed. While he gives 100% some nights, he might give 2% the next. He’s had 3 chances in the NHL now, and has failed on every one of them. While it’s unlikely he will get another shot, there is one team where he could fit in

Bryan may close to the end of his career only getting 28 points last season splitting time with the Panthers and Rangers. While that’s not great numbers, McCabe can supply leadership at a cheap price a team with some youth on the blueline while still getting 20-35 points a season. At 36 he could have another 1 or 2 years in the league helping out the young guys. What can hurt from bringing in a guy like this

While the biggest names out there in this very shallow free agency pool are gone, there are still a few guys out their if, put in the right spot, could do great on a new team. Sometimes all a player needs to do good is a fresh start.

The folks from ESPN 103.3, especially GM Pete Dits and program director Tom Lee, have been remarkably supportive throughout this process. But most important, I salute my wife, Meredith, for being extremely gracious each time the Eagles made blockbuster trades during holiday meals.

We think a lot about the future of location, and, every time a new technology comes along, we think about how it affects what we’re doing. Near-field communication (NFC) is one of those technologies; you tap your phone against a marker and it can check you in with foursquare. We’ve been testing it in our office for a little while and now we’re expanding the test a little bit for Google I/O.

It has been about four years since ESPN.com gave me the opportunity to start an NFL blog called Hashmarks (Trey Wingo came up with the name). I had no clue what I was doing, and in many ways, that remains true. But a lot of you guys supported and occasionally read the blog to the point my bosses decided to create eight divisional blogs.

It’s no secret that the NHL Network’s offseason programming is weak at best. Aside from about an hour of various reruns each weekday afternoon, the network is stocked with wall-to-wall rebroadcasts of the 2011 Stanley Cup playoffs. For diehard Boston Bruins fans, there are probably about 23 games that will be interesting. But for the rest of NHL fans that saw their favorite team make the playoffs, the rebroadcasts just re-open wounds that have only started to heal. And the 14 teams that didn’t make the playoffs at all? Chances are those markets are clamoring for replays of their rivals vying for Lord Stanley’s Cup.

As informal deadlines go, a meeting next week at least would beat the time frame of the 1998 lockout. That summer, the two sides went from July 22 until Aug. 6 without a negotiating session. That lockout lasted until January, nearly torpedoing the entire season before a last-second agreement led to a 50-game regular season.

Next week’s session is expected to include key figures, from commissoner David Stern and deputy commissioner Adam Silver to NBPA executive director Billy Hunter and NBA players. Two meetings in July to finalize calculations related to 2010-11 basketball-related income (BRI) on which the NBA’s player-compensation system is based were attended by staff members from both sides.

The two sides have not met since June 30, the date that the last collective bargaining agreement expired. The date and time of next week’s meeting was not confirmed, although various outlets were reporting that it could be as soon as Monday. The Web site SBNation.com carried a report Tuesday that a bargaining session would be held in the first two weeks of August.

A New York Times blog post Tuesday titled “Calling Foul on NBA’s Claims of Financial Distress” called the league “fundamentally a healthy and profitable business” with an estimated operating income of $183 million in 2009-10, making a 5 to 7 percent profit during the life of the collective bargaining agreement that expired last week.

Irabu never reached those enormous expectations, and his career spiraled. On Wednesday, the 42-year-old was found dead, an apparent suicide in a home in Rancho Palos Verdes, a wealthy Los Angeles suburb.

The All-Star outfielder was 0 for 4 with two strikeouts in his debut with the defending World Series champions, who won two of three against the major league-leading Phillies in a rematch of the NLCS.

At the time that Sabathia signed his seven-year, $161 million contract with the Yankees, the team gave him the opt-out clause essentially for his own comfort. Sabathia had reservations about playing in New York, about the nature of the market, so in order to assure him that he wouldn’t be assigned to a place he didn’t want to play the rest of his life, the Yankees offered the option of allowing him to walk away after three years.

C.J. Wilson is going to make a lot of money this fall as the pre-eminent starting pitcher headed for free agency in what already is considered a weak class of free-agent pitchers. Wilson is 10-4 with a 2.94 ERA, after going 15-8, 3.35 in 2010; he has demonstrated beyond any doubt that he can handle the rigors of working as a starter, and in fact, his long history as a reliever might help him. The fact is that Wilson has thrown relatively few innings compared to other starting pitchers his age.

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Erica goes down now and some of the same treatment. Wambach goes over to give the ref an earful, nothing much doing. You can see the frustration on their faces. Erica gets off the stretcher. A chorus of well-deserved boos.

We’re calling this a post-mortem blog as opposed to a live blog for obvious reasons. Join me in watching the replay of an instant classic. For those of you who watched the game already, spoiler alert: the U.S. wins. And that’s the way it should be. Saddle up on your couch in your favorite pj’s with your favorite bottle of wine or tub of ice cream, it’s a late night edition of the Strong Move’s Live Blog and we head into uncharted territory with this one: women’s sports. Leave your sexism and machismo on your YouPorn site you have on the other Firefox tab.

People are already starting to look and search information about Brazil, the official host cities, what to expect and do during the World Cup. One of the official host cities confirmed by FIFA is Curitiba, the capital city of the Brazilian state of Paraná (the state of the world-wide famous Iguassu Falls too). Curitiba has the largest population (1.8 million inhabitants 7th largest nationwide) and the largest economy in Southern Brazil. According to he American magazine Readers Digest, the city is considered the best place to live in Brazil