Tim Reynolds

SUNRISE, Fla. -- Florida coach Kevin Dineen was fretting on the bench as the Panthers were trying to protect a two-goal lead, a mere minute away from taking a 3-2 lead over New Jersey in an Eastern Conference first-round playoff matchup.

Carmelo Anthony's return to Denver is delayed for another year. LeBron James and Dwyane Wade won't be visiting Sacramento anytime soon. Fans in Chicago will only be seeing Kobe Bryant on television this season.

The NBA sought competitive balance. What it got was schedule imbalance.

One of the many consequences of the lockout, besides hundreds of lost games and hundreds of millions of lost dollars, was the tradition that every team plays in every NBA city at least once per season. That's not the case this year.

MIAMI -- Surprise, relief, joy and even some caution.

Such was the reaction of many NBA players and fans Saturday, amid news that the labor dispute which led to the cancellation of hundreds of games and threatened the entire season was nearing an end.

No schedules are out, the collective bargaining agreement has not been drafted and formal votes on the deal remain unscheduled. Still, for the first time in months, optimism seemed to take the lead over pessimism on the NBA's emotional scoreboard.

It'll feel like summer in Lake Placid, N.Y. on Saturday and Sunday.

For the U.S. bobsled, skeleton and luge teams, winter starts Monday.

The first training runs of the season will take place down the refrigerated sliding track at Mt. Van Hoevenberg on Monday morning. Despite unseasonably mild air -- temperatures are expected to reach the mid-70s in the Adirondacks this weekend, about 20 degrees warmer than normal -- workers have been able to build ice at the track for the past several days.

MIAMI -- Jurgen Klinsmann seems perfectly content with how he's adjusting to life so far as the United States.

The Americans are winless in three matches since the former star German player was hired to replace Bob Bradley as coach, although those results are of little concern to Klinsmann.

For now, he sounds pleased just to be getting a better handle on things after a relatively hectic opening few weeks leading the American side.

MIAMI -- Dwyane Wade has decided he cannot take a year away from basketball.

And if the NBA goes that route, Wade has decided to go somewhere else.

The sliding track that hosted the crash-marred 2010 Vancouver Olympics may soon have new start ramps in an attempt to make the treacherous course more safe.

The International Luge Federation will host a World Cup race later this year at the Whistler Sliding Center as planned, the first time an elite international field will race there since the Olympics. Georgian athlete Nodar Kumaritashvili crashed and died on the Whistler ice hours before those games opened, casting an enormous pall over the competition and raising many safety questions.