SUMMER TIME! JULY 2011

NHL NEWS: Detroit's Chris Osgood is ready to call an end to his 16-year career.

The Detroit Red Wings have announced general manager Ken Holland and free-agent goaltender Chris Osgood will take part in a conference call Tuesday. According to reports, the veteran Osgood will announce his retirement from playing and take a position with the club as a goalie consultant.

The Detroit Free Press had reported Monday night that Osgood was returning as the backup to Jimmy Howard, but amended that report Tuesday morning.

Detroit is still seeking a backup goalie and reports have linked them to veteran journeyman Ty Conklin, but nothing has been finalized.

The team re-signed Joey MacDonald to a two-way contract earlier this month but has yet to find a more tested goaltender to share time with Howard.

Groin injuries limited Osgood, 38, to just 11 games last season backing up Howard. Osgood went 5-3-2 with a 2.77 goals-against average and .903 save percentage. He had sports hernia surgery in January.

Osgood has spent 13 of his 16 NHL seasons with the Red Wings, with whom he's won three Stanley Cups. He is second on the team's all-time list with 319 wins and 39 shutouts, and his 2.49 GAA is fourth all-time among Red Wings goalies who have skated in at least 100 games.

The WINNIPEG JETS are pleased to announce today that they have agreed to terms with right wing Blake Wheeler on a new two-year contract, avoiding an arbitration hearing slated for early next month. The club also announced the signing of six other restricted Free agents on Monday.

Brett Festerling, Riley Holzapfel, Arturs Kulda, Spencer Machacek, Ben Maxwell and Kenndal McArdle all agreed to terms with the club on Monday. Contract details were not released.

NFL NEWS:Owners, players close to presenting deal to end NFL lockout....Legal teams and staff for NFL owners and players "chipped away," as league general counsel Jeff Pash put it, at their remaining labor issues for 8½ hours Monday at a Manhattan law firm, with an eye on ending the four-month-old lockout.

A timeline in which a new collective bargaining agreement could be struck is now in place. Meanwhile, in Washington, members of the NFL Players Association's executive committee began arriving for a Tuesday meeting that will be a precursor to a larger meeting Wednesday, which is scheduled to include player representatives from all 32 teams.

Those voices won't be enough to re-certify the union -- a vote of all 1,900 players is needed for that -- but the 32 reps could vote to recommend a settlement of the Brady et al v. National Football League case. The settlement to end the lockout then would be in the hands of the 10 named plaintiffs in that antitrust lawsuit against the league.

NFLPA spokesman George Atallah told The Associated Press that the players would gather "with the hope they have something to look at, and with the hope we can move forward on this."

The owners' objective is to have a completed deal to vote on at their meeting Thursday in Atlanta. In a memo sent Monday to all 32 teams, the league said that if all goes to plan, it will stage a "labor seminar" to educate clubs on the terms of the new deal, starting 90 minutes after ratification Thursday and continuing Friday at another hotel in Atlanta. Each team can have four reps, plus its owner, at that meeting.