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The star-spangled American version of Britain's most extravagant TV spectacle hit US TV screens last night - and it even makes the UK show look prudish.

The US X Factor is the most-hyped TV launch in history as Simon Cowell hopes to challenge his former show American Idol – currently the biggest in the States drawing 29 million viewers for its final this year.

The stakes are higher and there is no room for failure – just ask sacked Geordie judge Cheryl Cole. Even the prize for the winner – a $5 million recording contract – smashes records.

All this puts more pressure on show boss Cowell as he embarks on the riskiest venture of his career.

But luckily for the X Factor boss, the country is five times bigger than Britain too providing a far larger pool of talent. The opening show on US network Fox featured a string of contestants who would walk into the final in the UK.

There are more tears too, of course, with emotional US hopefuls wearing their sob stories on their sleeves.

And the American nutty novelty acts make our quirky Brits look normal. Some of the weirdest contestants – including pint-sized Prince-like performer Siameze - can even sing. Imagine Jedward with talent – terrifying, isn't it?

The judging panel sees American viewers getting their wish of Simon back alongside former American Idol colleague Paula Abdul – the TV couple also known as Saula.

Record exec LA Reid will challenge for the title of TV's coolest man. Cheryl appears in most of the first show and holds her own – but it's hard to deny her replacement Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger immediately looks more comfortable in the American arena.

The first show kicks off in heart-warming style with 13-year-old Rachel Crow – the US version has lowered the minimum age to 12.

She's cute, funny and talented and you can almost hear Eoghan Quigg – the child star of Britain's 2008 X Factor series – throwing his toys out the pram as she gives a flawless rendition of Duffy's Mercy.

Fragile single mum Stacy Francis, 42, belts out Aretha Franklin's Natural Woman with tears streaming down her face and is another early front-runner.

Her huge voice would had left last year's semi-finalist Mary Byrne, 51, ducking behind her Tesco checkout for cover.

And Marcus Cantey, 20, gives another of the week's best auditions with his emotive rendition of Stevie Wonder track I Wish.

It's an incredible performance that makes 2005 Brit X Factor soul crooner Andy Abraham – Andy the Binman – look, well, rubbish.

But the most show-stopping audition comes from rapper Chris Rene. The 28-year-old explains he has only just out of rehab and has been clean for 70 days and has entered the competition to provide a better life for his two-year-old son.

The hip-hop singer's own track Young Homie – which he wrote about his battle to beat drugs – sounds like a ready made No1 hit. It's certainly better than Cher Lloyd's recent chart-topper Swagger Jagger.

And in behaviour that would make Wagner blush we had Geo Godley, 43, who exposed himself to the judges while performing his own song I'm a Stud - and left Paula dashing off set to be sick.

Thankfully we were left not knowing if EVERYTHING is bigger in the States - his manhood is hidden behind an X Factor logo.

The TV camera zooms in on the owner’s box. Robert Kraft is inside, surrounded by family and friends. It’s a familiar sight at New England Patriots games.

And Myra was always there, seated beside her husband. He first spotted her at a Boston deli 49 years ago and married her 16 months later. Now another NFL season is starting, but without the “sweetheart” of the man lauded for helping to save football in her final days.
Someone else will be in her seat, Kraft says, perhaps one of his four sons or eight grandchildren. But, for him, she will always be there.

“We thought about leaving it empty, but I think it was collectively felt it would be a downer,” he said. “My sweetheart is with me and forever will be.”

Less than two months after his wife died of cancer, Kraft sits in his office, surrounded by photos from a rich life: dancing with Jackie Kennedy Onassis; posing with former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon and the Super Bowl trophy; meeting with then-president Vladimir Putin of Russia in a St. Petersburg palace.

Hanging behind his desk are four black-and-white portraits of each of his sons.

His friends are many and diverse: Rupert Murdoch, Donald Trump, the Dalai Lama. Elton John performed their wedding song, “Moon River,” in person at the Krafts’ 40th anniversary celebration and, when Myra died, sent a tall white orchid that adorns Kraft’s office. The Patriots boss even likes Albert Haynesworth.

Then there’s Tony, the cleaning man.

“I remember when I was running a plant and I used to stay late at night and the guy who used to clean it. Tony,” said Kraft, who worked for his wealthy father-in-law’s company that made packaging materials. “He had one tooth and he used to sweep the floors and the bathroom.

“He’d always come in and chat and I was just out of Harvard Business School. He didn’t have book smarts, but he was a smart guy. And I used to tell him my problems. And, you know, he gave me good advice. So you can learn from everyone. In our family, we try to treat everyone the same, as long as they’re people of character. I’ve got this thing. You only hang out with good people. You get the turkeys out of your life.”

Kraft’s employees are important to him, whether it’s those in his companies that do business in 91 countries or on his football team in the locker room a few floors below his office. That team begins its season Monday night at the Miami Dolphins.

“If I was on the field stretching before a game he’d always start with, ‘54, how we doing today?’ ” said Tedy Bruschi, a Patriots linebacker for his entire 13-year career. “Whenever you see him talking to guys on the sideline during practice, he always has his arm around the player or the player has his arm around him. That’s just the way the guys feel about Mr. Kraft.”

Now flash back to that big right arm of Jeff Saturday, captured in a picture-is-worth-a-thousand-words moment at the announcement on July 25 that the lockout was over. The 70-year-old Kraft’s wife of 48 years had died just five days earlier at the age of 68.

 Philadelphia Eagles Quarterback Michael Vick officially became the third highest-paid player in NFL history, signing a six-year, $100 million deal, with 40-million guaranteed.

Vick led the Eagles to the NFC East title last year NFL Network Analyst Steve Mariucci says Vick has to stay in the line-up.

"The question is will he stay healthy?"  asks Mariucci.   "Because there's no Kevin Kolb anymore, he's going to be starting for Arizona. They paid him good money, too. Vince Young will be the back-up, and Vince has had an up and down career, too. Let's hope Michael Vick stays healthy. He's playing for a good friends of mine, Andy Reid. He and I shared an office in Green Bay."

Vick was the starting quarterback in the Pro Bowl and was the Associated Press Comeback Player of the Year.

Vick has comeback after spending 19 months in federal prison on dogfighting charges.

On Wednesday, we took a look at the teams suffering through the most frustrating offseasons. It’s not all negative in the NFL, though — and as Facts of Life taught us, you have to take both the good and the bad.

(It also taught us all your serious problems can be wrapped up nicely in less than 30 minutes while you learn a valuable lesson, but that’s beside the point.)

So we shift our focus to check in on the teams loving life as Week 1 approaches. From scoring in free agency to shining in the preseason, this group of teams seems to have the needle pointed in the right direction:

• Philadelphia Eagles: No kidding. Next.

• Atlanta Falcons: It’s kind of a mystery why the Falcons keep flying way under the radar when people talk about Super Bowl contenders. Atlanta, if you recall, finished 13-3 last year before running into the Green Bay buzzsaw in the playoffs.

But here’s the thing: This Falcons team might be even better than last year’s division-winning group. Atlanta thinks it’s so close to a Super Bowl-winning team, in fact, that the franchise stayed relatively quiet in free agency — landing Ray Edwards was a huge boon — and sacrificed five draft picks to jump up and take Julio Jones in April’s draft.

Jones is a huge part of the reason Atlanta is on this list. He’s looked every bit a top-10 NFL draft pick this preseason and could be just what the doctor ordered for Atlanta’s passing game.

• Pittsburgh Steelers: The Steelers are in kind of the same boat as Atlanta. By bringing back Mewelde Moore, Trai Essex, Willie Colon, Johnathan Scott, William Gay and Ike Taylor, this is more or less the same group that nearly won the Super Bowl last season.

This has been a nice offseason for Pittsburgh, though, because we can compare it in relative terms to last summer. And last summer, all anyone in Pittsburgh could talk about were the off-field allegations levied at quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. Big Ben was suspended for the first four games of 2010 — Pittsburgh went 3-1 — and the controversy over his behavior lingered all season.

How much calmer are things now? Even Hines Ward’s DUI arrest and James Harrison’s controversial comments about Roger Goodell were rather quickly forgotten.

This year, it’s all about football in the Steel City. For a team that should be really, really good again, that is a welcome respite.

• San Diego Chargers: Their work in free agency was fine — they kept some key players (Mike Tolbert, Eric Weddle, Antwan Barnes) and added a piece here or there (Takeo Spikes, Bob Sanders). And they had a solid draft, selecting Corey Liuget for the D-line and rounding things out with two picks in both the second and third rounds.

But what we’re interested in is Philip Rivers. He’s still one of the game’s elite quarterbacks, and he went out of his way this offseason to organize players-only workouts during the lockout. He’s talked extensively about his drive and focus this season, about wanting San Diego to avoid it’s usual early-season swoon.

San Diego could definitely lose its spot on this list by not carrying over some nice offseason momentum into the regular season, but the mojo appears to be there — finally — to get off to a strong start.

• Detroit Lions: A perfect offseason this has not been for the Lions. They lost first-round draft pick Nick Fairley to a broken foot and second-round pick Mikel Leshoure for the season with an Achilles tear. They missed out on major upgrades in the secondary, like Nnamdi Asomugha or Jonathan Joseph. And they didn’t find any major help on the offensive line.

Still, there is not a team in the league, save for maybe Philadelphia, that can match the hype Detroit’s receiving this summer. From the national media to the fan base, there is a buzz surrounding the Lions like maybe never before.

Leading that charge is Matthew Stafford’s return to the field. His shoulder, he claims, is 100 percent. It’s definitely looked that way so far this preseason, as Stafford’s been more than impressive early on.

Meeting exponentially raised expectations will be tough, but the Lions have to be enjoying the ride.

• Arizona Cardinals: Sure, they had to part ways with Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie and had a rather underwhelming free-agent push. On the other hand, the Cardinals found their QB of the future in Kevin Kolb, then locked him up for several years. They also fully committed to Larry Fitzgerald, the face of the franchise, and made sure he’ll be around for plenty of seasons to come.

Arizona’s betting on its foundation to keep it in contention. Even though the Rams improved, Seattle won the division last year and San Francisco’s reenergized under a new coach, the Cardinals are right there in the NFC West. They have to be feeling comfortable that they’ll stay there for the foreseeable future, too.

When the season began, the Wizards were so desperate for a player representative for the union that veteran Kirk Hinrich reluctantly assumed — okay, he was practically forced into — the responsibility. But when the season ended, they had Maurice Evans, a vice president of the National Basketball Players’ Association who will represent them in negotiations for what is expected to be a critical collective bargaining agreement.Evans, who joined the Wizards in a trade deadline deal with Atlanta involving Hinrich, said two weeks ago that his primary objective this offseason is making sure that owners and players can reach a deal, “so we can have a season next year. I’m very optimistic.”
He conceded that a lockout would occur, but only because he doesn’t expect an agreement to be reached before the current CBA expires on July 1. The sides are extremely far apart, though the owners are expected to deliver a new proposal to the players’ union, possibly by Friday.
The NBA hasn’t had a work stoppage since 1998, when the season was reduced to just 50 games. But NBA Commissioner David Stern has repeatedly said that the current system is broken and needs to be fixed, with 22 out of the league’s 30 teams losing money, amd with collective losses of $300 million last season. Owners are pushing for a hard cap and an increase in basketball-related income, with players currently guaranteed to get 57 percent. Evans said players might be willing to relent on BRI, but do not intend to budge on a hard cap.
“In my opinion, the current deal we have now is actually working,” Evans said. “So if we can just work from there and try and figure out something that works for everybody… Again, we want to bargain with them. We don’t want to throw darts and say who is right and who is wrong. We just want to get a deal. There has to be some model that says this is how we do business and it’s consistent from here out. Tweak this, and work from there. Honestly, I don’t think there is anything more we can give and a hard cap is definitely not going to happen.”
The owners are also expected to push for reducing the length of guaranteed contracts, and limiting the guarantees on some deals, which Evans felt is unnecessary. “I don’t think there is nowhere to go from here,” he said. “Everything has gone down. We can’t continue to diminish the years of contracts. GMs and owners don’t have to sign players for those allotted number of years. We don’t need to self-govern them. Doesn’t make any sense.”
Evans is paying close attention to the NFL labor situation, which was made more complicated when its players decertified the union and filed an antitrust lawsuit the day before team owners locked them out. This week, a federal judge in Minnesota ruled the league must lift its lockout, but the NFL is seeking a stay at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. The NFL players’ victory has raised optimism that something could get done without the NBA destroying the momentum of an exciting regular season and playoffs by having a prolonged lockout.
But until the NFL situation is completely resolved, Evans said in a text message this week, he would only classify it as a “step in the right direction.”
“It was a drastic measure,” Evans said at Verizon Center recently about the NFL players decertifying the union. “They took a chance. That means they are serious about trying to have football. We’re serious about trying to have basketball. So hopefully, we won’t have to go through those measures and we can sit down and hammer out a deal.”
Evans said the NBA players couldn’t surrender the progress of previous generations with the next collective bargaining agreement. The union is ready for a lengthy fight. “We’re prepared and we’ve prepared for this for a long while. So are the owners. I hope no one has been preparing with malicious intent, to try and prove a point and be spiteful. We’re just trying to get a deal. We want basketball and we want football and we want all sports to be, because it’s a part of our culture and it’s a part of the values.”

The dynamic of the NFL draft goes much deeper than first-round picks walking across the stage in three-piece suits (bought by their agents) to shake the commissioner’s hand.
For many prospects, the weekend is full of emotions. Sit by the phone, pace the floor and stare at the TV waiting to see your name.
I was that player in 2000. On my drive home along Interstate 88 to Glen Ellyn after four years of football at Iowa, I carried with me the expectation I would get that one phone call sometime in the third round — or maybe the middle of the fourth, at the latest.
I watched as my childhood dreams of playing for the Bears vanished when they selected safety Mike Brown in the second round.I sat through the entire third round in the living room.
Phone calls came at the beginning of the fourth round. Two teams instructed me to wait by the phone, as I was the player they wanted with their next pick. I was told I would hear from the head coach. Those picks came and went without another call.
I sat silent, heartbroken and nauseous.
By the start of the fifth round, I headed upstairs to the quiet of my parents’ house. Occasionally I could hear aunts and uncles milling around in the kitchen. I just walked the hallway — back and forth.
I found my baseball bat from Glenbard West tucked away in a closet. I picked it up, started taking swings, passing the time. I was holding that bat for hope.
Three picks into the sixth round, panic set in. I didn’t even have a resume nor know how to write one. I would have to buy a suit — one that looked good for a job interview — and trade in my old man’s hand-me-down sport coats.
For the first time, I realized I might not get drafted at all, that it might be over.
You trace back through your career … high school games under the lights, state playoffs, Big Ten afternoons at Kinnick Stadium, Camp Randall and the Big House.
I didn’t even have the draft on TV when the phone rang. Quickly I heard the voice of Peter Giunta, defensive coordinator of the Rams.
“Matt, we just drafted you.”
The living room erupted downstairs, joy piercing through the house as my name flashed across the screen. I could barely stand, let alone speak, as I tried my best to be thankful and proud at the same time with my new coach. The stress dissipated from my body.
Pick No. 198, sixth round of the 2000 NFL draft. That became my bio.
I hardly noticed the pick that came right after me, No. 199, amid the celebration that I ran down the stairs to join.
It was the quarterback from Michigan, Tom Brady.

Boston Bruins defenseman Andrew Ference claims he had no intention of giving the fans at Bell Centre the middle finger after he scored a goal at 9:59 of the second period Thursday night.
After the Bruins beat the Canadiens 5-4 in overtime to even the best-of-seven Eastern Conference quarterfinal at two games apiece, Ference addressed the situation.
“It looks awful; I just saw it,” he said of the replay. “I can assure you that’s not part of my repertoire. I think my glove got caught up. I can assure you that’s not part of who I am or what I ever have been. It looks awful. I admit it and I completely apologize to how it looks. I was putting my fist in the air. I’m sorry. It does look awful. I don’t know what else to say.”+Ference could receive disciplinary action from the NHL for the gesture, but said he’s not concerned.
“Honestly, I have no idea,” he said. “It looks really bad. All I can do is tell you the truth, and that’s the truth. I totally agree it looks bad. I can assure you that’s not who I am or ever will be. I was pumping my fist in the air. I don’t score too many goals and that’s about all I have in my [celebration] repertoire.”
Bruins coach Claude Julien said he hadn’t seen the replay of the incident.
“I didn’t see it, so I can’t comment,” Julien said. “I’ve heard about it, but I haven’t had a chance to talk with Andrew. If you ask me, I’m surprised because that’s not Andrew at all. I’m shocked. I don’t know whether it happened, or what, but I would be very surprised. That’s not his style.”
Montreal coach Jacques Martin said he did not see the gesture.
Prior to Ference’s goal — which cut Boston’s deficit to 3-2 — Canadiens forward Brian Gionta drilled Ference hard into the boards in the Bruins’ end. Ference got to his feet, got into the play in the offensive zone and knuckled a shot past Montreal goaltender Carey Price.
“Honestly, it was rolling and I just whacked it, and 90 percent of the time it goes off the glass. I got lucky it went in,” Ference said.

The opening days of the 2011 playoffs didn’t just feature good, intense basketball. They also featured — this is crucial — shocks.
Essentially nobody picked the Grizzlies or Hornets to win Game 1 on the road, but alas, late Sunday, there were the West’s top seeds, the mighty Spurs and legendary Lakers, beaten.
Amazing basketball is often not enough to push the NBA to the top of a crowded entertainment landscape. But a stunning outcome here or there does the trick every time.
The truth is that because of those surprises, the NBA playoffs matter far and wide; nothing quickens the hearts of fans like Cinderella stories. It’s not just that unbiased fans like underdogs. It’s that it’s fun to watch any event when you have no freaking idea what’s coming next. When uncertainty rules, it’s not just a good game, it’s a good party. And who doesn’t like a good party?
All this excitement has led all kinds of smart people to ask: How dumb would the NBA owners be to shut this down because of labor strife this summer? There are superbly conditioned and intelligent young stars all over the league, delighting fans by playing their hearts out getting sweaty, scuffed and bloody. A lockout not only deprives the world of their tremendous efforts, but (if past pro sports labor disputes are any guide) sours fans on those same players, who look spoiled and unlikable when taking a “hell no we won’t play for those paltry millions” stance.
Meanwhile, just by keeping the lights on, the NBA is poised to have a hell of a decade.
Insight from the front lines of labor talks: One of the key things that may inspire a lockout is the league’s desire to set the stage for much more excitement.
Locking out players to create more thrills? If you talk to the central characters in the talks, including NBA commissioner David Stern, Players Association executive director Billy Hunter and NBA deputy commissioner Adam Silver, besides all those hundreds of millions of dollars the owners will insist on from the players, a key issue in these talks is a team-by-team hard cap.
Hunter is adamantly against it, calling it the most important of all issues, and he implies it’s one on which he has no intention of bending.
He says a hard cap would effectively end guaranteed contracts which he calls “the lifeblood” of professional basketball.
“We’ve had that right for years, and it’s not something we’re trying to give up,” he explains.
The league, meanwhile, would like to convince people that a team-by-team hard cap is no sneaky tactic to undermine players’ financial security, but is instead a way to inspire the kind of parity that delights fans of some of the world’s most lucrative sports, including NFL football and NCAA basketball. It’s a way to create the kind of excitement that has rocked the NBA in recent days.
The league has long had policies designed to help teams keep their players. But think about that. The Lakers and Heat have more than their fair share of stars locked up, and as long as that’s so, the Grizzlies and Sixers of the world will be playing uphill in their title quests.
It’s simple, and harsh: You can either have the best players stay with the best teams for a long time or you can have meaningful parity.
The league is switching sides in that battle right now. They have converted to the religion of player movement (high priest: LeBron James), of empowered underdogs and a level playing field. The league is trying to reinvent itself to make more games meaningful. They’d love the Players Association to come along — because as much as the league and the union are adversaries when it comes to carving up revenue the revenue pie, they’re partners when it comes to baking the biggest pie possible.
Research suggests that more uncertain outcomes lead to more certain income, or … more pie.
There’s a reason that the TV deals for the NFL and the NCAA basketball tournament both dwarf the NBA’s. In just about every game of the NFL season, and in just about every game of the NCAA tournament, you simply must watch to know what’ll happen. It all matters. You wake up the morning of the game with almost no ability to pick any winners. That’s the kind of thrill-ride that leads to enraptured fans and huge TV income.
By encouraging roster stability, the NBA has been discouraging that uncertainty — leaving some fan bases with perennial title hopes, but others with little to cheer for. That’s a lost opportunity to capture the hearts and minds of those many fans more interested in great storylines than well-executed plays. (If sports are at their best when you have no idea who’s going to win, then they’re at their worst when a strong team like the Bulls meets a weak team like the Timberwolves. 48 minutes of garbage time, anyone?)
The rubber hits the road with deals like the Lakers’ 2009 contract with Lamar Odom. The capped-out champions were in no position to make Odom their franchise’s top priority — not with Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum to pay. But their pockets are so deep that they were able to pay him a lot anyway, making the best team in the league even better. Score one for franchise stability.
Last week deputy commissioner Silver — the league’s point person on CBA issues — said the NBA’s goal in collective bargaining is “to create a system in which all 30 teams can compete for a championship and, if well-managed, have the opportunity to make a profit.”
In the terms of the league’s last proposal to the players, not only would the Lakers have been prohibited from going over the cap to keep such talent on their bench, but they also would have written generous revenue-sharing checks to a team like the Hornets so that they might be able to sign Odom or someone like him.
The goal of all that: More shockers. More teams in the title mix. Less certainty. Oodles of middling teams with a real shot at something special. More fans glued to TVs all over the world.
Revenue sharing is tricky If we need more close games, and the Lakers’ advantage is money, couldn’t the Lakers just give the Hornets some money and leave it that? Why make a hard cap when revenue sharing can do the trick?
Yes, that could be part of the solution, kind of. Part of the Lakers’ advantage is income. But the rest is having the front office smarts and tenacity required to win.
Just imagine a hypothetical NBA owner not consumed by the quest to win, but who treats his team as an income source. How much do you want to reward a freeloader like that?
Major League Baseball wrestles with that. They have robust revenue sharing, but have not found the NFL’s level playing field, nor its ratings. In some markets freeloading owners simply pocket those revenue-sharing dollars. When that happens, the system designed to encourage all teams to strive for titles instead does the exact opposite, rewarding a few of them for guaranteeing mediocrity, predictability and long-term disappointment.
The NBA says that at the moment eight of 30 teams make money. Perhaps those eight owners could be convinced to help out the other 22 in the name of a stronger league. But even after hashing out the tough details of all that, is there anything about writing those checks that would make the most mismanaged of those 30 teams smart and dedicated to winning? Wouldn’t many teams still be condemned to mediocrity?
A hard salary cap addresses that by reducing the damage poorly run teams can do to themselves, especially when paired with another NBA proposal, to shorten guaranteed contracts. If the likes of Gilbert Arenas, Rashard Lewis and Eddy Curry had simply signed shorter contracts, they may still be in the NBA today, but on tiny, market-appropriate contracts — while the big dollars they’re earning now would be going to more productive players.
Taking money from players, giving it to owners Yes, that’s a huge part of what the NBA wants. They have been frank that they literally want the players to make less money — $800 million a year is one number that has been discussed — and the owners more. The two sides both know that, and it’s no secret they will be negotiating a bigger share for owners. How much more? That’s the crux of the negotiations.
And I can hear what you’re thinking. A hard cap is just more of that. Dress it up with talk of competition, but it is sure to reduce salaries every which way. It takes free-spending owners like Mark Cuban or Jerry Buss and turns them into mere Maloofs. There’s a reason the Players Association has had zero interest in all this. They see it simply as a way to inflate franchise values at the cost of the players’ financial stability.
So, here’s an idea: To allay the union’s fears that a team hard cap will ultimately cost players money, put it in writing. Guarantee that the players will receive their share of “basketball-related income” every year. Let’s say the two sides negotiate that players will get 53 percent of basketball-related income. The hard cap for each team would be 1/30th of that. And the league could simply agree that there will be not only a maximum salary, but a minimum, too.
And while it’s the best-kept secret in sports, this is what they already do, right now. Yes, indeedy, there has been a league-wide hard salary cap in the NBA for a decade. No matter how much individual players negotiate, what they actually receive as a whole is in fact capped — hard-capped — at 57 percent. (Some of those players that you have heard make $12 million a year have contracts that say $12 million, but they actually make just $11 million if that’s what it takes to bring player income to that magic 57 number.)
Guaranteeing players a minimum percentage means that if all those Busses and Cubans suddenly get frugal, it need not hurt players as a whole. They’ll make the same, as a group, as they would without a team-by-team hard cap.
Unless, of course, the players make more. Remember the whole idea is that a hard cap would inspire more close games, more shocking outcomes, more sex appeal on television, bigger TV deals and therefore more revenues all the way around. With a guaranteed fat percentage of increased league revenues, the players would benefit from all that as much as anyone, and in theory could make more than ever.
In other words, maybe there could be a delightfully surprising outcome for players, too.

The Buffalo Sabres will be the happier of the two sides after managing a shutout and five goals in their two games against Philadelphia, despite the series being tied 1-1. Expect them to be given a warm reception on home ice, Monday night at the HSBC Arena. “We hope the fans really get into it and cheer us on, because we can definitely feed off that and use that to our advantage,” said Sabres Winger Drew Stafford.
Game 2′s 5-4 score line flatters the Sabres a little as they were 5-3 down at the end of the second period, and although they pulled it back to just one goal, 6:12 into the third when Cody McCormick slipped a Rob Niedermayer backhand pass through into the net, the Flyers had the measure of them in the rest of the final period. Philadelphia  goalie Brian Boucher decided enough was enough, and he ably defended his goal and the Philadelphia Flyers’ winning margin.It was a cracking night for both sets of fans as the teams swapped the lead back and forth for the first period, a period that saw six goals.  The game remained level (3-3) until midway through the second period when Buffalo’s Steve Montador was sent off for tripping. During the ensuing power play, Villie Leino fired a shot from the circle that hit Ryan Miller’s stick before going in at 13:36. The control shifted at that point and the Sabres saw Game 2 and their chances of heading home 2-0 up slip away from them as Danny Briere got the Flyers’ 5th at 15:27 in the second.  ”Once again we did a lot of good things on the power play, putting pucks on the net, doing what we wanted to do,” said Briere, ” At the end of the night it’s the goal that makes the difference.” How right he was as it was his goal that proved to be the winner.
Stampeding BuffalosOn Monday the biggest danger will be the Sabres letting their emotions boil over, while being cheered on by the home fans. Saturday’s game saw Buffalo give Philadelphia ten power plays overall, and six in the all important game-deciding second period. The Sabres managed to kill off 9 of those shorthanded situations, but the one they didn’t ended up being Philadelphia’s go-ahead goal. For the record Buffalo had given Philadelphia 15 power plays over the first two games in the series. It’s a problem that the Sabres are well aware of, “It’s something we talked about before the game,” Buffalo Right Wing Jason Pominville said after Game 2. “We talked about it coming into the series and we haven’t done a good enough job and put ourselves in penalty trouble. Definitely not the way we want to play. I thought our penalty killers did a good job, but if we give that team that many chances, they’re going to make you pay eventually.” Buffalo have been stung with a massive 18 minor penalties and have ended up playing short-handed for an excruciating total of 25 minutes, 11 seconds so far.
Expect the Buffalo faithful to demand plenty of action on Monday night, “I think the emotion in the building will be incredible,” said Sabres Head Coach Lindy Ruff, “I think the atmosphere has always been incredible. It’s our fans, its our energy,” he should well remember that energy is nothing without control.
This series could well be the choicest and closest in the NHL Playoffs first round and I’m backing the Sabres on the betting odds board to take Game 3, and give the Flyers plenty to ponder ahead of Game 4. Not only have they shown that they can score past the Flyers, they’ve shown they can shut them out, they have home ice advantage and (for the sake of history) they have not lost back-to-back games since February 22nd .

When it comes to the Stanley Cup Playoffs, there really is no place like home.
It’s why teams battle through a long 82-game season, all in hopes of locking up home ice in at least the first round, if not more. The comfort of thousands surrounding the home team, holding their breath with every shot and save, ready to explode in an instant—it makes the playoffs what they are.
Whether it be waving towels, constant chants, or non-stop cheering, the fans can play a major factor in any game—and often do. When you can get the crowd into a game, it becomes a powerful force behind a team, and can leave the opposition eager for a plane ride out of there.
So with the 2011 Stanley Cup Playoffs fully underway, there is no better time than now to take a look at who the best crowds in the NHL are.
Get that towel waving, and watch out for flying octopus0