Overtime Play

It was a hockey game with almost no end. The Buffalo Sabres and New Jersey Devils played through three regulation periods and three 20-minute overtime periods Wednesday night without scoring. The Sabres won, 1-0, when Dave Hannan scored 5:43 into the fourth overtime. It was nearly 2 a.m. EDT in Buffalo when the game ended. On the winning play, Jason Dawe shot from the right circle.

Tracy McGrady got the best of LeBron James this time. He's not making any promises about the future. "He's unbelievable," McGrady said Thursday. "He's not 18. Can't possibly be. If he continues to work hard and stay hungry, it can be ugly. It's scary how good he can be. You just look at him, man. The poise that he has out on the basketball court. The confidence. He has that swagger."

A header from Alex Morgan in overtime stoppage play lifted the U.S. women's soccer team to a 4-3 victory over Canada on Monday, setting up a matchup with Japan in Thursday's gold-medal final. Japan beat the U.S. on penalty kicks last summer in Germany during the World Cup. In a game that had more counterpunching than most heavyweight title fights, the U.S. rallied from one-goal deficits three times in regulation, overcoming three goals from Canadian captain Christine Sinclair.

Wearing the black "16W" cap that represents his career-long mission, Ray Bourque playfully put teammate Joe Sakic in a headlock that signified gratitude as much as relief. With one timely backhand, Sakic sent Bourque and the Colorado Avalanche to the Stanley Cup finals by scoring on a rebound 24 seconds into overtime Monday night to give the Avalanche a 2-1 victory over the St. Louis Blues.

A short time ago, a tie with Mario Lemieux and the Pittsburgh Penguins would have been just fine with the Minnesota Wild. But Thursday night at St. Paul, Minn., was, well, a little disappointing. Richard Park scored his second goal of the season to lift the Wild to a 1-1 tie with the Penguins, but Minnesota couldn't convert an overtime power play after Pittsburgh was penalized for too many men on the ice with 1:38 remaining.

Eight snaps. In a bulging Coliseum that shook with roars and swayed with groans, one football season for two teams was defined in eight snaps. That's all it took. On a Saturday night when one team rose to the national championship game while the other blew into an outpost bowl like a sad tumbleweed, the difference between them could be found in eight snaps. The inspirational brilliance of Notre Dame, the utter chaos of USC, everything illuminated in a 22-13 Irish victory that could be described in those eight snaps.

Forget what you may have heard, the most important position in team sports is NHL goaltender. Jean-Sebastien Giguere's impressive performance for the Mighty Ducks in their 2-1, triple-overtime victory over Detroit confirmed that Thursday. If Giguere, who made 63 saves in his first playoff game, had been anything short of remarkable, the defending Stanley Cup champion Red Wings would have won.

The Charlotte Hornets, replacing three injured opening-night starters with three players whose last address was the Continental Basketball Assn., were leading the Clippers by 15 points in the third quarter Thursday night. In other words, the Clippers had the Hornets right where they wanted them.