NEWS IMAGE COLLAGE / for 03-2008

Players with the Ontario Hockey League are protesting a new rule that forces them to wear neck guards on Facebook.

A New Democrat MP has turned to YouTube in the fight to build a new school for the northern Ontario native community of Attawapiskat. The video has become one of the most watched political videos of the week.

For the second time in a week, the National Hockey League is left trying to explain a deciding goal on a play that clearly should been blown dead by its officials.

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Patrick Marleau's name was bandied about in rumours all last month leading to up the trading deadline. The decision by the San Jose Sharks to keep their captain just might have been the spark he needed to turn around a difficult season

CHICAGO - Rookie Corey Crawford got his first start this season for the Chicago Blackhawks and played like a seasoned veteran.

DALLAS - With some timely offence and strong play in goal Wednesday night, the Phoenix Coyotes are still in the post-season hunt.

DETROIT - The Detroit Red Wings are getting healthier - and it shows. Pavel Datsyuk scored twice to lift the Red Wings to a 4-1 win over the St. Louis Blues on Wednesday night, NHL-leading Detroit's second straight win after a 1-8-2 stretch.

BUFFALO, N.Y. - Alexander Ovechkin is quickly discovering how much more satisfying it is to score goals now that the Washington Capitals find themselves in the playoff hunt.

ATLANTA - Eric Staal wouldn't mind playing a few more games in Atlanta this season.

The only way to prevent getting hosed at the pumps is to pay with cash, says Barbara Donnelly of Keremeos, B.C.

Halifax's police chief says some officers are ignoring their Tasers and reaching for their night sticks instead, leading to more violent confrontations and injuries.

Former Liberal Newfoundland premier Brian Tobin was sending around an e-mail last week extolling the truly remarkable achievement of Canada's tent pegging team...

The number 13 has long been considered unlucky by superstitious people around the globe. How fitting, then, that Bill Gates' reign as the world's richest person ends after his 13th year at the top.

Thirty-three pilots across Canada have reported being flashed in the eyes by a laser beam while flying, including at least five incidents near Toronto's Pearson International Airport.

The Saskatchewan Roughriders will start the 2008 CFL season without the head coach and starting quarterback that led them to their first Grey Cup in 19 years.

TORONTO -- Ontario will follow suit with other provinces across Canada in pursuing a ban on smoking in cars where children are present, Premier Dalton McGuinty said Wednesday.

Another round of winter weather is taking aim at eastern Canada Wednesday as snow, high winds and freezing rain sweep across Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada.

An Air Transat flight heading to Canada from the Dominican Republic was redirected to Florida late Tuesday night after eight passengers complained of being sick.

CALGARY - The old Miikka Kiprusoff is back, although this one is a little bit more rested.

DENVER - Peter Forsberg didn't want anyone to expect too much from him in his first game back.

EDMONTON - It has definitely become a Predator-prey relationship. Martin Erat recorded his first career hat trick as the Nashville Predators made it eight wins in a row over the Edmonton Oilers with a 5-1 win on Tuesday.

TORONTO - As players on the Toronto Maple Leafs dejectedly made their exit off the ice Tuesday night, they may have noticed an out-of-town scoreboard that showed four of the six teams in front of them in the Eastern Conference standings pick up points.

TAMPA, Fla. - Maybe his shooting touch was a little off, and his legs grew weary after being injured so long. No matter, Sidney Crosby looked as though he had never been away.

PHILADELPHIA - Derek Roy was so wide-open, it didn't look right. As it turned out, he was an extra skater.

ST. LOUIS - It appeared to be a simple play. It was also the one that Ryan Johnson and Jamal Mayers work on all the time that produced the winning goal for the Blues and helped St. Louis break out of a six-game losing streak.

NEW YORK - Wade Dubielewicz came to Madison Square Garden expecting to see No. 1 goalie Rick DiPietro getting ready for the start of a huge home-and-home series with the New York Rangers.

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Patrick Lalime certainly deserves a lot of credit if the Chicago Blackhawks claim the final playoff spot in the Western Conference.

BOSTON - Florida's Craig Anderson had another perfectly busy game in goal. Anderson followed his record-setting shutout two days ago with a 40-save performance in the Panthers' 1-0 victory over the Boston Bruins on Tuesday night.

Almost two years after the Queen of the North went off course, struck Gil Island and sank while en route from Port Hardy to Prince Rupert, the Transportation Safety Board is releasing its report March 12.

In what will be one of the rankest exhumations ever, a blue whale buried in Prince Edward Island 20 years ago is about to be dug up and shipped to Vancouver.

DENVER - There was no Colorado Rocky Mountain High to be found for the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday night.

AMUNDSEN GULF, N.W.T. -- If you think walking out on thin ice on the Assiniboine River is crazy, imagine creeping to the edge of a newly formed Arctic ice floe in -35 C weather above waters more than 350 metres deep.

14 Airfield Engineering Squadron (14 AES) has been awarded the 2007 "Patton-Cunnington Airfield Engineer Trophy" for "the successful completion of a project of significant magnitude" by 1 Canadian Air Division.

OTTAWA - Minister of National Defence Peter MacKay announced Feb. 29 that Canada will be next in the rotation to lead Combined Task Force 150 (CTF 150), a naval coalition task force currently operating in the Middle East from June until September 2008.

Canada won a sizeable legal victory over the United States Tuesday after a private court settled the first dispute to flare up over the 2006 softwood lumber deal between Ottawa and Washington

PASADENA, Calif. - Scientists say a robotic spacecraft circling Mars has snapped the first image of a series of active avalanches near the planet's north pole.

OTTAWA -- Canada is in the final stages of high-level talks with the United States to acquire six battlefield helicopters for operations in Afghanistan, says Defence Minister Peter MacKay.

Lawyers for an Albertan on death row in Montana are asking the Federal Court to force the Canadian government to continue seeking clemency for him.

The Conservative budget easily passed in the House of Commons on Tuesday, after the Liberals decided to skip the vote

With metals prices skyrocketing, investors at industry's top gathering wondering where big finds have gone

OSLO, Norway (AP) -- Austrian skier Matthias Lanzinger's lower left leg was amputated Tuesday because of complications from two broken bones in a crash at a World Cup race.

ANAHEIM, Calif. - The rematch was similar to the Stanley Cup finals: mostly all Ducks.

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Brian Campbell had been trying this particular spin move since he and Joe Thornton were kids growing up in Ontario. It never really worked until Monday night, when the Sharks' newest defenceman finished a win for his new fans with a ta

WASHINGTON - Alex Ovechkin's slump is over. After scoring one goal in his previous eight games, Ovechkin had a hat trick in the Washington Capitals' six-goal first period, and he finished with five points in the 10-2 victory over the Boston Bruins M

Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre has decided to retire after 17 seasons in the NFL. Favre's agent reportedly told ESPN the future Hall of Famer informed the Packers of his decision on Monday night.

The body of a firefighter, killed while battling a blaze at a home in Varennes, Que., has been recovered in the basement of the residence.

The polar bear bounding along the frozen surface of the Arctic keeps looking over his left shoulder as he puts distance between himself and the 8,000-tonne icebreaker plowing through the ice

Sending Halifax-based submarines to the West Coast for major maintenance will cost $1.1 million for each round trip.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Reconstructing Afghanistan is not going exactly as everyone had hoped, a senior Canadian aid official admits.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Standing silently in the rising sun, a chaplain wept Tuesday as the body of the 79th Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan left the Kandahar Air Field.

Despite an apparent appetite for change, voters in Alberta have gone with the tried-and-true, giving the Progressive Conservative party an unprecedented 11th consecutive majority government, CBC News projects.

CHICAGO - The Chicago Blackhawks and rookie Patrick Kane were more impressed with their defence than their offence after beating the Vancouver Canucks.

EDMONTON - The Edmonton Oilers have finally busted through the .500 barrier.

BUFFALO, N.Y. - Mired in their worst slump in nearly 20 years, the Detroit Red Wings were determined to end the misery.

ST. PAUL, Minn. - An unlikely offensive source helped the Minnesota Wild gain an important two points.

NEW YORK - Welcome to the NHL version of a windy day at Wrigley Field.

UNIONDALE, N.Y. - The New York Islanders fired 53 shots at Florida Panthers goalie Craig Anderson, including a franchise-high 29 in the second period.

PITTSBURGH - Ryan Malone can't remember the last time the Pittsburgh Penguins had all of their key players together.

Legendary blues guitarist Jeff Healey has died, his publicist said Sunday. The Canada rock musician had battled cancer for his entire life.

A Canadian soldier was killed on Sunday after his armoured vehicle hit an improved explosive device in southern Afghanistan, a military official said.

CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez on Sunday ordered 10 battalions of troops to the border with Colombia after Colombia's military killed a top rebel leader.

GLENDALE, Ariz. - Jarome Iginla was impressed with the way his Calgary Flames played.

MONTREAL - Saku Koivu caused quite a stir prior to the season when he suggested that his Montreal Canadiens may be good enough to make the playoffs, but they are not considered favourites to win the Stanley Cup.

OTTAWA - Ottawa Senators coach Bryan Murray wanted some emotion from his team as they attempted to halt a three-game slide before they head out west on a four-game road trip. The players responded.

ST. LOUIS - Brian Boucher's first start of the season might make it easier for the San Jose Sharks to give hardworking goalie Evgeni Nabokov a few more days off.

DALLAS - Nashville needed time to regroup after a couple of leaky defensive outings the past week.

BOSTON - David Krejci is finding his scoring touch.

RALEIGH, N.C. - No one would blame the Carolina Hurricanes if they took a few minutes before each game simply to introduce themselves to each other. With trades, injuries and other moves in the past two months, plenty of new faces made their way into the

UNIONDALE, N.Y. _ Mike Knuble had no idea his skate and stick were positioned perfectly to score a short-handed goal.

Joined by stars such as Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Shakira and Elton John, former president Bill Clinton told a Toronto fundraising crowd last night of his latest foreign aid efforts in Latin America and the developing world.

The Canadian navy is deploying three war ships to the Persian Gulf, one of the largest single naval contribution to the war against terrorism since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"I don't know anything about how this has come about. Certainly it was something that I was not involved with,'' said MacKay, who was in St. John's, N.L., to make a funding announcement.

KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan -- Before coming to Afghanistan last August, Col. Nicolas Eldouad made a promise to the families of his 450 troops that everything possible would be done to bring all his soldiers home alive.

CRAWFORD, Texas - President George W. Bush urged NATO members on Saturday to come to Canada's aid in southern Afghanistan, promising to join the effort to convince European allies to meet Ottawa's demand for another 1,000-soldier strong battle group by

Iditarod fans may be hoping for another close finish between friends and neighbours Lance Mackey and Ken Anderson, but for most of the 96 mushers and dog teams starting the famous sled race on Sunday in Alaska, just finishing will do nicely, thank you.

The RCMP members association is demanding the federal government redo its investigation into the Mayerthorpe killings, claiming that the probe that was done lacked independence, CBC News has learned.

Late MP Chuck Cadman's daughter is urging her mother to leave the Conservative Party and run as an independent.

The family of a Victoria, B.C. man who claims to be John F. Kennedy's illegitimate son has called his allegation "unequivocally false."

Pakistan police have formally accused a top Taliban leader and four others of plotting the Dec. 27 assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

A woman and two of her children, both under the age of five, are dead following an early-morning house fire in Hamilton, Ont.