National Hockey League Executive Vice President and Director of Hockey Operations Colin Campbell issued the following statement regarding the instigator penalty assessed to Pittsburgh's Evgeni Malkin at 19:41 of the third period of tonight’s Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final:

Rule 47.22 states: "A player who is deemed to be the instigator of an altercation in the final five minutes or at any time in overtime shall be suspended for one game, pending a review of the incident. The director of hockey operations will review every such incident and may rescind the suspension based on a number of criteria. The criteria for the review shall include, but not be limited to, the score, previous incidents, etc..."

Following that review, Campbell said: "None of the criteria in this rule applied in this situation. Suspensions are applied under this rule when a team attempts to send a message in the last five minutes by having a player instigate a fight. A suspension could also be applied when a player seeks retribution for a prior incident. Neither was the case here and therefore the one game suspension is rescinded."

The Mitchell Report is out. Scanning for Tigers players I ran across Rondell White and Nook Logan. Clearly Nook didn't get the same stuff that Bonds got... Also Mark Carreon, Hal Morris, Phil Hiatt, and Fernando Vina.

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At the end of the 2004 season, a clubhouse employee was cleaning out the Detroit
Tigers locker room when he found a black toiletry kit that was locked. He and another Tigers
employee opened the bag and found unused syringes and vials that they determined were
anabolic steroids. They did not report the incident. The employee said that he could not
remember who the bag belonged to.

The Denver Post is reporting that the Lions are shopping the #2 pick. Denver reportedly wouldn't give up the Lion's asking price of "multiple draft picks that included Denver's No. 21 selection". As I'm one of the large plurality advocating the Lions trade down I'm happy to hear it.

Yes, the Lions have held preliminary discussions with the Broncos regarding the No. 2 pick during the past month, NFL sources confirmed.

But Broncos fans shouldn't get their hopes up.

According to sources, the Lions asked for multiple draft picks that included Denver's No. 21 selection. The Broncos considered the asking price far too high, and trade discussions have ceased.