Sleep

...ba href=/sleep/a/b last night we knew it would be a difficult game emotionally," said Carter.

"You can't play the score, you have to play like it's going to be 1-0.

A boring game just like watching paint dry." For a while it looked like that tactic would work again for the Wild, who beat Edmonton on Tuesday and were eager to steal important playoff points from another Northwest Division rival.

But after failing to record a shot on their first four power plays, Daniel Sedin's pass through the crease left Carter with an open net and he slammed his 30th goal of the season past a helpless Manny Fernandez.

"I didn't know how much time was left," said Sedin, who also scored for the Canucks.

"It was nice to look up at the scoreboard after the goal and see 6 seconds left.

Alex Auld finished with 20 saves to help Vancouver win for the fourth time in five games and move into a tie with Anaheim for sixth place in the Western Conference.

"For our hockey club it was a big goal regardless of how much time is left on the clock because it's two points", said Carter.

"Just to get any points in this game is huge and to get two is even bigger." The win moves Vancouver two points ahead of eighth-place Edmonton.

The Canucks wrap up a five-game homestand with a rematch against the Wild on Friday.

"We want to knock these guys out of the playoffs," said Minnesota forward Wes Walz.

"We have a good rivalry with this team and we're not going to fold up our tents and pack it up, we re going to play hard all the way ...

...ba href=/sleep/a/bMarch 30, 2006Most parents will attest that two daily, daunting tasks are getting the kids to go to bed at night and getting them out of bed in the morning.

And most parents will concede that their success rate is not what it should be.

Confirmation of that comes from the somnolently named National ba href=/sleep/a/b Foundation, which has completed a survey that tends to show we are rearing a ba href=/sleep/a/b-deprived generation.

Only 20 percent of youngsters ages 11 to 17 get the recommended nine hours of ba href=/sleep/a/b a night.

Sixth-graders average 8.4 hours, but high-school seniors — that year is stressful enough without those students feeling drowsy — average only 6.9 hours.

The foundation said that 28 percent of high-school students reported falling aba href=/sleep/a/b in class at least once a week.

And there are associated problems of tardiness, being too fatigued to exercise and potential health problems down the road.

Some of this lack of ba href=/sleep/a/b has to be generational.

Previous generations were far more active physically and ready to go to bed at night when there wasn't much else to do anyway.

Today's teenagers live in a 24/7 world and many have to arise at hours designed to accommodate the school-bus schedule and not their body clocks.

And, tellingly, the foundation found that 97 percent of the teenagers had at least one electronic device — TV, computer, phone, CD player, maybe even a clock radio — in the bedroom, and those teens who had four or mo...

...ba href=/sleep/a/b and made open shots and, again, once we turned the ball over they were into the [fastbreak], somebody gets a wide-open three, somebody gets to the basket." At least Cheeks tried to quickly adjust in this one.

When big men Steven Hunter and Samuel Dalembert struggled early, he went to backups Michael Bradley and Shavlik Randolph (eight rebounds in 16 minutes, 1 second).

That worked only briefly.

"Any time you lose and continue to lose, you have to have something good happen to turn it around," Cheeks said.

"When you continue to lose, you feel it.

We have to endure.

When you lose 10 out of 12, you have to somehow find a way to change it.

"I know you guys [reporters] don't believe [we can].

I have to believe, and I have to make those guys believe.

I've never been one of you guys.

I have been one of those guys.

It's like great players always believe they'll make the next shot; I have to make those guys believe something good is going to happen.

I don't know if it's going to happen.

I have to believe it can happen." It wasn't going to happen against the Pistons, who didn't exactly bring their "A" game.

They also didn't need it, not even coming off an emotional victory over the Dallas Mavericks the previous evening, or having to play for the third time in 4 nights.

For the Pistons, doing just enough meant placing five men in double scoring figures, all between 14 and 18 points.

Somebody actually asked whether the Sixers could have sent a message to their prospective first-rou...