HOCKEY

BETTMAN: TALK OF PREDATORS TO CANADA IS PREMATURE

Without a binding agreement between Nashville Predators own er Craig Leipold and Canadian bil lionaire Jim Balsillie, talk of the team relocating to Canada is strictly premature.

That was NHL commissioner Gary Bettman’s stern message yes terday after a meeting of the league’s board of governors.

Leipold and Balsillie, the co CEO of BlackBerry maker Re search In Motion, agreed to a term sheet for the transfer of ownership of the club, but that is nonbinding The delay in closing the deal pre vented the sale from being up for vote by the league’s 30 teams be fore this weekend’s draft in Columbus, Ohio.

Balsillie has already started a process to move the Predators to Hamilton, Ontario, should a po tential out in the team’s lease with the arena in Nashville be exercised after the sale’s completion Leipold announced May 24 he was selling to the team to Balsillie.

BASKETBALL

MCHALE: I’M NOT ACTIVELY SHOPPING GARNETT

As far as Minnesota Timber wolves basketball boss Kevin McHale is concerned, any trade talk involving Kevin Garnett so far has been just that — talk.

“Who knows what’s going to hap pen?” McHale said Wednesday after the Wolves worked out college stars Jeff Green and Al Horford in preparation for next week’s draft. “But we’re not out there actively shopping Kevin Garnett around the NBA. I can tell you that much.”

McHale was pressed on the topic a day after Danny Ainge told The Boston Herald that he has talked to McHale about Garnett.

But McHale dismissed that news as the typical chatter that happens between team executives in the days leading up to the NBA draft.

“At this time of year, all the teams are talking to each other,” McHale said. “Everybody phones each other saying, ‘Hey what are you looking at? What are you doing?'”

Associated Press

BASEBALL

RED SOX TO PLACE SCHILLING ON DL WITH SORE SHOULDER

The Boston Red Sox will place right- hander Curt Schilling on the 15-day disabled list with tendonitis in his pitching shoulder, a team spokesman said.

Schilling had an MRI exam yesterday, which showed “no new structural damage,” spokesman John Blake said in a telephone interview. He said Schilling would go on the disabled list in two days.

The 40-year-old pitcher told Boston radio station WEEI that he had a cortisone shot yesterday and that he hasn’t “felt right” all season.

Bloomberg News