VITO RIZZUTO

Montreal — Nicolo Rizzuto, the 84-year-old patriarch of one of Canada's most infamous crime families, is free to walk out from jail only two years after his highly publicized arrest.


A Quebec judge this morning accepted the joint suggestion of Crown and defence lawyers in agreeing to a four-year jail sentence for Mr. Rizzuto. But his two years spent in jail since his 2006 arrest count as double, meaning he is now a free man.

Mr. Rizzuto and five other men, alleged leaders in the Montreal Mafia, pleaded guilty last month to a raft of charges resulting from a lengthy police investigation.

The father of Vito Rizzuto, the reputed to head the Montreal Mafia, the elder Rizzuto was described as being in poor health and, despite his reputation, for having a minor role in the criminal organization.

Nicolo Rizzuto will have to report to a probation officer, and remains on probation for three years.

Four other leader in the Montreal underworld were handed sentences today of up to 15 years. All will serve no more than 11 years, however, due to their time already spent behind bars.

A fifth man returns to court next month.

The other men are Rocco Sollecito, Paolo Renda, Francesco Arcadi, Francesco Del Balso and Lorenzo Giordano.

During a four-year investigation, the RCMP penetrated the heart of the criminal organization, installing hidden cameras inside their headquarters.

According to RCMP affidavits, hundreds of kilos of cocaine were imported through Montreal's Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport, where baggage handlers, food-services employee and even customs agents were on the gang's payroll.

The allegations are outlined among more than 1,000 criminal counts filed in November 2006 against 90 people the police identified as associates and underlings of Vito Rizzuto.

The four-year investigation by several police forces culminated in a 700-officer raid in November 2006 across Quebec, as well as Halifax and Toronto where more than 70 people were arrested and homes and bank accounts were seized. About $3-million was also seized as proceeds of crime.

At the time the RCMP said police struck at the heart of one of the top criminal syndicates in Canada.

Police say the criminal organization had succeeded in infiltrating Montreal's airport and co-opting a dozen airport employees as well as a federal customs agent.

Mitchell Janhevich couldn't believe what he was seeing. Inside a noisy hotspot called The Joy Club one evening in May, 2003, the Montreal beat cop spotted – amidst the frenzy of lights and sound – five men huddled together in a VIP section. He immediately recognized one of them as Vito Rizzuto, who seemed engaged in a sort of gangster get-together. When Rizzuto and his friends left the club and climbed into a Mercedes Benz, Janhevich followed them in his cruiser and eventually pulled them over.

As Janhevich approached the Mercedes, a heated verbal exchange broke out between the passengers and the police officer. Soon, Rizzuto lost his temper, clambered from the car and stalked over to Janhevich. A tall man with hawkish features, Rizzuto confronted Janhevich and demanded: "Do you have any idea who I am?"

Rizzuto, one of Canada's most successful gangsters. "Teflon Don": Montreal mafia kingpin
Janhevich knew perfectly well who Vito Rizzuto is, although most Canadians would be hard-pressed to place the name. Which is surprising, given that Rizzuto is considered the "Teflon Don" of Canada, due to his success in evading conviction during the more than two decades he reigned over Montreal's underworld. In fact, Victor "Vito" Rizzuto is fairly unique in how he successfully merged old-world Sicilian Cosa Nostra sensibilities with modern-day management methods in creating and running his crime family.
Debonair, charming, with trademark swept-back iron hair, the 60 year-old Rizzuto has a healthy appetite for beautiful women, sports cars, mansions, golf and haute cuisine. He is one of the most successful gangsters this country has ever produced and, were it not for the fallibility of the dons of the American mafia, he would likely be a free man to this day.

Born into a prominant Sicilian mafia family
Rizzuto was bred to be a mafia prince. Born in 1946 in Cattolica Eraclea, a small village of 6,000 in the mountainous province of Agrigento in Sicily, Rizzuto is the oldest son of Nicolo "Nick" Rizzuto, a true "man of honour" – the stony-eyed hard cases who belong to the Sicilian Mafia.


When Vito was eight he and his family came to Canada, settling in Montreal, part of a wave of Sicilian mafioso who emigrated to this country in the 1950s and would shape the criminal underworld for decades to come. In those days, the New York-based Bonanno crime family considered Montreal part of its territory, largely because of the convenience of the city's port for offloading heroin shipments from Europe.



'Mafia Row' in Montreal - where the Rizzuto family home is located. Nick Rizzuto joined the Bonanno organization, running a tough crew of Sicilian gangsters and establishing himself as an up-and-comer in the Canadian mob. As he came of age, Vito followed in his father's footsteps. He became a Canadian citizen in 1966 and married Giovanna Cammelleri in a classic mob-style wedding ceremony attended by Montreal's gangster gentry. Two years later, the 22 year-old Rizzuto was arrested after he and his brother-in-law burned down a barbershop for insurance money – his only conviction ever. He was in jail for only a few months.

By the '70s, the Rizzutos and other Sicilians were at odds with the leadership of the Bonanno's Montreal organization, then headed by the volatile Calabrian, Paolo Violi. Finally, one night in 1978, the Rizzutos' problem was solved: Violi was shot in the back of the head as he sat down for a meal at a Montreal restaurant. His grisly slaying ushered in the Rizzuto era.

A mafia-style shooting in New York
Vito's true mafia baptism occurred in 1981 when a factional tug-of-war within the Bonnano family in New York led to the decision to murder three dissident captains. A request went out to Montreal for hit men, and Vito was dispatched as a shooter. On the night of May 5, 1981, the three mob captains showed up at a hangout in Brooklyn, where gunmen immediately jumped out of a closet and opened fire. The first person charging from the closet was Vito Rizzuto.

A photo taken of Rizutto by FBI agents. In Montreal, Vito embraced the day-to-day operations of the family. He moved into a palatial house on a street called "Mafia Row", due to the fact its occupants are mostly mobsters and their relatives. His house is 4,300 square metres, with his father living in a similar spread next door.

Vito established his presence in loan-sharking, gambling, drug smuggling, and money-laundering. He formed alliances with other Italian-based crime families, along with the Hell's Angels, Montreal's West End Gang and South American cartels.

The glamorous - and dangerous - world of a gangster
Vito's routine was to rise at eleven o'clock every morning and go to the Cosenza bar, a social club the family runs on Jarry St. East, about thirty kilometers from their home. He is an avid golfer and could often be found on the links around Montreal. He drove upscale cars, including Lincolns, Mercedes, Jaguars and Corvettes. He owns resort property in Mexico and always traveled with bodyguards outside of Montreal.

Yet police had little success curbing his operations. In the '80s, Rizzuto was arrested twice for importing hash, but got off both times when a witness changed his story and wiretaps used by police were deemed illegal.



Joe Pistone, an FBI plant in the Bonnano crime family, says violence is part of life for any mafia member. Vito Rizzuto's world is a violent one. In 1992, for example, Giuseppe Lopresti, a neighbor of Vito's in Mafia Row and one of his closest associates, was found in a vacant lot, murdered, his body wrapped in a canvas sheet. He had been shot in the head, apparently because he'd run afoul of the New York mob. In 1997, Hamilton mobster Johnny "Pops" Papalia and his right-hand man were murdered. Papalia's death allowed Rizzuto to extend his reach into Ontario.

New York mafia connection turns on Rizzuto
By the 1990s, Vito's organization was so powerful it was considered stronger than most of New York's five Cosa Nostra families. But, his fall from this pinnacle was due to the treachery of his American partners-in-crime in the Bonanno family. The FBI had waged a relentless war against the New York mafia and in 2001, they targeted the Bonanno family and its cunning boss, Joey Massino. Their efforts to break the family paid off when Massino's right-hand man, Salvatore Vitale, agreed to co-operate. Vitale fingered Rizzuto as among the shooters in the 1981 killing of the three dissident Bonanno captains. Consequently, on the early morning of January 20, 2004, Vito was arrested at his home in Montreal.

In August, 2006, after Rizzuto's many appeals were exhausted, the Montreal mobster was finally deported from his prison cell in Quebec to New York where he now awaits trial. His father Nick, meanwhile, is still alive and residing in Montreal, although who will oversee the Rizzuto organization remains uncertain.


Rizzuto handed probation, suspended sentence

Killer role for Kunis in 'Max Payne'

Max Payne - Based on a popular video game, this film stars Mark Wahlberg as a cop haunted by the tragic loss of his family. While investigating a series of murders, he befriends a young woman who is out to avenge her sister’s death. They discover similarities in their situations and together, they work to catch the people behind the killings. This action flick also stars Beau Bridges, Mila Kunis, Ludacris, Donal Logue, Chris O’Donnell and Kate Burton.

Mila Kunis ("That 70's Show") will star opposite Mark Wahlberg in 20th Century Fox's "Max Payne" reports Variety.

An adaptation of the Rockstar videogame, Wahlberg plays Payne, a cop haunted by the tragic loss of his family who finds himself in the thick of a conspiracy when he investigates a series of murders.

Kunis will play an assassin who teams up with Payne to avenge her sister's death. The John Moore-directed action project with Beau Thorne scripting is scheduled for release later this year.


Seven years since Max Payne brought bullet time into videogames on the back of its jaw-dropping effect on cinema audiences, the action goes back to the big screen in this belated adaptation. Mark Wahlberg has stepped up to star as the titular maverick cop on the hunt for those responsible for the brutal murder of his family, and a journey into the underworld.
The original third person shooter videogame had close allusions to film with cinematic story sequences and noir-style night and rain devouring every moment. However, the main appeal of Max Payne was the ability to shoot the bad guys in the same "bullet time" style seen in The Matrix while leaping between crates or through doorways – a simple gimmick which was stretched over two games. Controlling Max around mainly enclosed spaces, killing everything that moved with the ease of slow motion became famous for its novelty factor when bullet time was still creating a buzz and The Matrix sequels were being anticipated rather than lambasted. In bringing the game to screen, the filmmakers will need to work on giving us more than just this borrowed element to make an engrossing film - especially as it’s not clear if this novelty value is being exploited.


The last time Wahlberg was cast as a no-nonsense killer was in The Shooter, a run-of-the-mill revenge thriller. His chiselled features were wasted on a bland character and even blander story, but Max Payne has the advantage of its noir style to help develop the tortured soul’s bid to bring his family’s murderers to justice. Of course, being Max Payne there has to be copious amounts of violence but, done right, the dark undertones could be amplified by the gunfire rather than provide the padding.

Whether it achieves this aim could be reliant not on Wahlberg’s performance, but on those around him. The presence of Ludacris and Nelly Furtado, more famed for their music than acting ability, and Chris O’Donnell, normally associated with average studio fare than hits, gives the impression we could be in for a rough ride. Director John Moore’s CV is sketchy: his previous high profile movies such as The Omen, Flight of the Phoenix and Behind Enemy Lines were workmanlike and there’s no getting away from the fact Max Payne is hardly a gaming household name anymore. The film is billed to include enemies from beyond the natural world too, a fantasy element not normally used in classic noir or even more modern day fare such as Sin City.

Max Payne will not be aiming to shoot the bullseye of taste with the average movie fan: it’s most likely to fall into that limbo of gamers wanting to see how their hero has been presented on the big screen and those looking for a simple actioner. If it achieves any more, then it will be considered a huge success for all involved.

Gina Carano AKA Crush plays the Soviet Commando in Red Alert 3

Gina Carano AKA Crush is set to play the Soviet Commando Natasha in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3’s campy FMV live-action cutscenes. The Russian hero Natasha Volkova will be portrayed by MMA fighter Gina Carano, known as Crush on American Gladiators, who will be carrying a Soviet Dragunov rifle on-screen and supposedly as a playable unit in-game as well.

Carano said: “Natasha is such a cool, powerful character, her actions definitely speak louder than her words which is something I definitely identify with. I can’t wait to see how everything turns out and I hope all of the gamers out there have a great time wreaking havoc as me.” — Red Alert 3 is coming to PC, Xbox 360 & PS3 in early October 2008.

Canadian Grand Prix dropped from 2009 calendar

The Canadian Grand Prix, which is held annually in Montreal, has been removed from the 2009 Formula One calendar.

The race, which was first held in Canada in 1967, takes place every summer in Montreal, generating tens of millions in revenue for the city.

"This brings in roughly $75 to $80 million dollars," montreal escorts said Tuesday, adding that many business owners were worried.

The decision marks the first time the Canadian Grand Prix won't be on the schedule since 1987, when local organizers and the F1 had a dispute over sponsorship.

According to the F1 calendar, Turkey's GP will be moved from August to June 7, the date usually reserved for the Montreal event.
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To ensure there are still 18 races around the globe, the inaugural Abu Dhabi GP has been added to the list.

The Montreal race was reportedly cancelled after contractual problems developed between Circuit Gilles Villeneuve officials and commercial rights holder F1 management, reports The Canadian Press.

Officials with the Grand Prix of Canada (GPC) said Tuesday they were informed of the decision through the media.

The GPC's Rosalie Wolkowicz told CTV.ca that no comment will be issued until the organization speaks with Formula One Management (FOM) and the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA).

Pierre Houde, a sports announcer for RDS, said he was shocked to learn about Montreal's removal from the calendar.

"Frankly, I don't see any valid reason for the federation to make such a drastic move as we've seen today," Houde told CTV Montreal.

The Montreal race was almost dropped in 2004 because of an impending federal ban on tobacco advertising.

Under the terms of the deal, the ten F1 teams that relied on tobacco sponsorship received up to $2 million to race unbranded cars in Montreal.

With the 2009 cancellation, North America will be without a Formula One race for the first time in 43 years.

The U.S. GP was axed from the F1 schedule last year.

The 2009 Formula One calendar is as follows:

March 29 - Australia
April 5 - Malaysia
April 19 - Bahrain
May 10 - Spain (Barcelona)
May 24 - Monaco
June 7- Turkey
June 21- Britain
June 28 - France
July 12 - Germany
July 26 - Hungary
August 23 - Spain (Valencia)
August 30 - Belgium
September 13 - Italy
September 27 - Singapore
October 11- Japan
October 18 - China
November 1- Brazil
November 15 - Abu Dhabi

Montreal Escorts

GANGSTA ...

WEST SIDE IS THE BEST SIDE !!

Those Women Drivers...

Danica Patrick isn't just dangerous behind the wheel of an Indy car, cops say she also posed a threat on the mean streets of Scottsdale, Ariz.

Court docs which show the race car diva was popped by Scottsdale P.D. back in January for doing 57 in a 40 mph zone. But here's the kicker -- Danica was ordered to take defensive driving school to get the ticket dismissed!

Guess the class worked -- because 40 days after Patrick finished her court-ordered traffic class, she won her first Indy race.


Those Red Asphalt videos really do work!


Montreal Escorts

Mars lander finds ice: NASA

Scientists believe NASA's Phoenix Mars lander exposed bits of ice while recently digging a trench in the soil of the Martian arctic.


Mars probe beams home first pics


LOS ANGELES - Scientists believe NASA's Phoenix Mars lander exposed bits of ice while recently digging a trench in the soil of the Martian arctic, the mission's principal investigator said Thursday.

Crumbs of bright material initially photographed in the trench later vanished, meaning they must have been frozen water that vaporized after being exposed, Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson, said in a statement.

"These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it's ice," Smith said. "There had been some question whether the bright material was salt. Salt can't do that."

Phoenix Mars is studying whether the arctic region of the Red Planet could be habitable. The probe is using its robotic arm to dig up soil samples, and scientists hope it will find frozen water.

However, an initial soil sample heated in a science instrument failed to yield evidence of water.

The bright material was seen in the bottom of a trench dubbed "Dodo-Goldilocks" that Phoenix enlarged on June 15. Several of the bright crumbs were gone when the spacecraft looked into the trench again early Thursday, NASA said.


Phoenix's arm, meanwhile, encountered a hard surface while digging another trench Thursday and scientists were hopeful of uncovering an icy layer, the space agency said. That trench is called "Snow White 2."

The arm went into a "holding position" after three attempts to dig further, which is expected when it the reaches a hard surface, NASA said.

Scientists have been using names from fairy tales and mythology to designate geologic features around Phoenix and the trenches it has been digging.

In 2002, the orbiting Mars Odyssey detected hints of a vast store of ice below the surface of Mars' polar regions. The arctic terrain where Phoenix touched down has polygon shapes in the ground similar to those found in Earth's permafrost regions. The patterns on Earth are caused by seasonal expansion and shrinking of underground ice.

Engineers also have prepared a software patch to send up to Phoenix to fix a problem that surfaced Tuesday in the use of its flash memory. NASA said that because Phoenix generated a large amount of duplicative file-maintenance data that day, the mission team has been avoiding storing science data in the flash memory and is instead transmitting it to Earth at the end of each day.

"We now understand what happened, and we can fix it with a software patch," said Barry Goldstein, the Phoenix project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

Phoenix landed near Mars' north

Jamie Lynn Spears gave birth to a baby girl

JACKSON, Miss. - Jamie Lynn Spears gave birth to a baby girl Thursday morning at a south Mississippi hospital, according to a friend of the Spears family.

The friend, who asked not to be identified because the family had not yet announced the baby's birth, told The Associated Press that the baby was named Maddie Briann and weighed 7 pounds, 11 ounces.

The 17-year-old Jamie Lynn was the star of Nickelodeon's "Zoey 101," a sitcom about prep school friends, and is the younger sister of pop star Britney Spears. The Spears family announced in December that Jamie Lynn was pregnant. The father is Casey Aldridge, a pipe-layer from Liberty, Miss. The couple is not married but announced an engagement several months ago.

Ellen Brannan, spokeswoman for Southwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center, in McComb, would not give out any details. "We understand everybody's interested, but we don't give out information on anyone. Everyone's entitled to their privacy," she said.

The younger Spears lives near Liberty with Aldridge, 19, and has been seen around the small south Mississippi town often as her pregnancy became more apparent. Her family owns a home across the state line in Kentwood, La.

Spears announced her pregnancy through an article in OK! Magazine and was expected to receive a large payday for exclusive pictures of the newborn.



Nickelodeon issued a statement about the birth on Thursday, saying, "We wish her and her family well." Nickelodeon spokeswoman Marianne Romano said that filming of the fourth and final season of "Zoey 101" was completed last summer before Spears became pregnant.

Spears portrayed Zoey Brooks, a student at Pacific Coast Academy, a campus that had been an exclusive all-boys boarding school until Zoey and a handful of other girls arrived. At the end of the series, Zoey gets the boy - longtime crush Chase (Sean Flynn).

Bunny War!

Unfortunately, this is not a post featuring cute pictures of little, furry bunnies dressed as soldiers with plastic guns. This is about a different bunny. A bunny with yellow polyester hair, robot eyes and fake chichis. The Playboy bunny! TMZ reports that it's war between Holly Madison and Kendra Wilkinson of "The Girls Next Door." A source said that everyone on the set of the show hates Holly, especially Kendra. Can't the robot and the dyke just get along?!

Holly and Kendra are fucking up shoots since they fight all the time. Producers are getting sick of trying to film around it. Uh....what's wrong with filming the fight itself! Who doesn't love a good bunny fight. Throw them in a cage with a couple of carrots.

Holly who is Hef's #1 bunny has even started showing her dick around the magazine. She apparently wants more and more editorial control and longtime employees are not having it.

The other bunny, Bridget, tries to keep the peace. Yeah, popping pills every 5 minutes can do that to a person.

Holly needs to stop the fighting and start the plotting! This bitch should be knocked up with Hef's spawn by now! She doesn't have much time before he goes off to the great, big bunny field in the sky. She should be trying to get oil out of his dry well, not fighting with Kendra's fake hip-hop ass.

I say, send them all back to wear they came from, the day-shift at Hooters!


Montreal Escorts

Montreal's 2008 Grand Prix

Canadian GP - As It Happened

Lying in his way, however, are the troubling matters of a 60 percent chance of rain, a disintegrating track surface with Robert Kubica, Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso all ready to pounce.


Latest:
1. Kubica
2. Heidfeld +13.6
3. Coulthard +19.9
4. Glock +35.7
5. Massa
6. Trulli
7. Barrichello +46.5
8. Vettel +47.4

Lap 69: Kubica's on his final lap. The win moves him into the lead of the World Championship.

Lap 68: Massa moves up to fifth with some help from Glock. The German slows, blocks his team-mate allowing the Brazilian by. He's now right on the tail of Glock now with two laps left.

Lap 64: Coulthard is closing on the BMW Saubers in front of him. The gap is just six seconds at this stage. Vettel and Kovalainen are right on the tail of Barrichello, meanwhile. The Honda is struggling.

Lap 63: There is a lot of black brake dust on Kubica's car, and Trulli has just confirmed that he is struggling with his brakes. Seven laps remaining.

Lap 60: Rosberg tries to get by Vettel but fails and then loses ninth to Kovalainen after losing his momentum.

Lap 59: A mistake from Barrichello drops from fourth to sixth by running wide and leaving Glock and then Trulli by.

Lap 58: Coulthard slows around the hairpin, causing anxious looks in the Red Bull garage. He seems to be running up to speed again, however.

Lap 56: Kovalainen has dropped to 10th following his second stop. Massa is 7th after his third pit stop.

Lap 54: The marshalls are clearing his car with the help of a digger. No stop to the racing, however.

Lap 52: Fisichella has spun, so the Safety Car is on stand by. The Italian's race is over. Massa has raced into the pits, meanwhile.

Lap 49: Kubica took just seven seconds in the pit lane and comes out well ahead of colleague Heidfeld. It's on for a 1-2 here, with 21 laps remaining.

Lap 48: Nakajima runs into the rear of a Honda and breaks his front wing. The Japanese racer then plants himself into the pit wall entering the garage area. Kubica is heading for pit road.

Lap 46: Kubica is now just over 20 seconds ahead of his team-mate in second. With another stop to come the Pole needs another few seconds as Heidfeld is not stopping again.

Lap 44: ALONSO IS OUT! The Spaniard slaps off a concrete wall, after losing his rear on the approach to the back straight. Disaster for Renault.

Lap 43: Alonso is stalking Heidfeld, and dives down the inside of the BMW. He cannot hold position though and the German gets back in front.

Lap 41: Alonso almost runs into the back of Heidfeld after the German's brakes early. The Spaniard swerves out to the left and misses his rivals though. Piquet's race is over.

Lap 39: Massa is into the points, taking advantage of a mistake by Nakajima. The Brazilian may need to pit again. Kubica is stuck to the rear end of Glock at the moment. Trulli has pitted.

Lap 38: Trulli leads from Glock at the moment. Both men still have to stop, with Kubica the leading runner otherwise.

Lap 36: Barrichello has headed for the pits, leaving Coulthard in front. The rest of the field are stopping now, moving Kubica closer to the race's lead. Vettel joins him on pit lane.

Lap 35: Barrichello is under pressure from Coulthard in the battle for the lead. Alonso is all over Heidfeld, in the big battle of those who have already stopped. Replays show Giancarlo Fisichella just grazing the wall, but he seems undamaged.

Lap 33: Kovalainen and Button are among those fueled to the end of the race. The latter was not penalised for entering pit lane while it was closed because he only changed his tyres and came in again for fuel.

Lap 31: Kubica has inched down the inside of his BMW colleague around Turn 1, but it seems the German is fueled until the end. Alonso is now behind Heidfeld and is the realistic threat to BMW Sauber's first potential race win.

Lap 28: Heidfeld is into the pits. He takes 12.4 seconds of fuel on board but emerges ahead of his team-mate. Kubica and Alonso are just behind. Officials have also announced an investigation into the incident that ended Hamilton, Raikkonen and Rosberg's race.

Lap 27: A spin has scuppered Piquet's race. He has kept his Renault going though.

Lap 26: Heidfeld is 11 seconds ahead of Barrichello and 20 ahead of colleague Kubica. The German will be coming in shortly though.

Lap 24: Kubica is only 15 seconds behind Heidfeld, so the advantage is the Pole's at the moment. How much fuel did Alonso get on board?

Lap 23: Robert Kubica is 10th, having escaped any damage from the pit lane incident. He is the lead driver to have stopped at this stage, while his team-mate Heidfeld leads the event.

Lap 21: More problems for Ferrari. Massa has come in again and is now 17th. With the fuss around Raikkonen, it seems the Brazilian might not have got any fuel on aboard when he came in originally.

Lap 20: Replays show that Raikkonen and Kubica stopped for a red light at the end of the pit lane but that Hamilton did not slow and ran into the rear of the Ferrari. Rosberg is also involved in the incident.

Lap 19: While trying to exit the pit lane, Hamilton has clashed with Raikkonen. Both men have suffered damage and are out of the race.

Lap 19: The pit lane is open and Hamilton, Ferrari and BMW all pour in.

Lap 18: Williams and Ferrari pit crews are on stand by. Button will be penalised for his stop unless he got into his garage before the pit lane closed.

Lap 17: The Safety Car is out. Hamilton's eight second lead is gone, with the field now bunched up again. Jenson Button is in the pits.

Lap 15: Raikkonen is now within half a second of Kubica. Sutil's car - his brake ducts - are on fire so the marshalls are out on track. The Safety Car is on stand by.

Lap 13: Raikkonen is starting to make a move in third. The Finn has just recorded the fastest lap of the event so far. Adrian Sutil's race is over, meanwhile.

Lap 12: Hamilton now has a five second lead over Kubica. Piquet is now up to 13th after nipped down the inside of Trulli and bounced off the tyres of the Italian for his troubles.

Lap 10: Piquet is now looking at 13th, currently claimed by Jarno Trulli. Not a good weekend for Toyota at the moment.

Lap 9: An interesting battle is developing for fourth, with Fernando Alonso and Massa tracking close behind Rosberg. Nelson Piquet has overtaken Glock to move to 14th. Big problems for the Toyota man it seems.

Lap 7: Kubica is now matching Hamilton's time. The Briton had been eeking out a tenth a lap, but the BMW Sauber driver could have slightly less fuel on board based on board according to Setanta Ireland's Gary Anderson.

Lap 6: The gaps are appearing now, with Hamilton three seconds ahead of Kubica. Raikkonen has no answer for the Pole, while Rosberg is struggling to keep up.

Lap 4: Heidfeld is down the inside of Barrichello at the hairpin. He moves up to eighth. Temperatures are rising, but it seems the field is taking it nice and handy at the moment.

Lap 3: Another loser off the grid is Timo Glock, who has dropped three to 14th. Nick Heidfeld is all over the back of Rubens Barrichello, who is likely to have a slightly heavier fuel load on board given his qualifying display.

Lap 2: Hamilton is the fastest man on track at the moment. No problems with the track surface so far.

Lap 1: Hamilton leads away safely. Alonso is the big loser with Nico Rosberg getting by. The field is safely away at this stage with Vettel and Button joining from the pit lane.

The PRICE is right !!!

Price era gets off to great start for Habs

MONTREAL - The Carey Price era is officially under way.
The rookie goaltender took over the No. 1 job after Cristobal Huet was sent to the Washington Capitals at the trading deadline Tuesday afternoon and he passed his first test as he backstopped the Canadiens to a 5-1 win over the Atlanta Thrashers Tuesday night at the Bell Centre. The 20-year-old Price stopped 26 shots.

Price had mixed feeling about Huet's departure. He said it was like "losing a big brother" but he also said that he thought he was ready for the pressure of being the man.


"(Huet) was unbelievable. He was a first-class guy, a great teammate who took me under his wing. I can't say anything bad about that man."

In fact, Price said that Huet's influence continued even after he was traded. He left behind a message on the bulletin board in the Canadiens' dressing room, which read: "Had an awesome time with you off and on the ice. Best of luck."

Price held the Thrashers to a second-period power-play goal from Ilya Kovalchuk - his 41st of the season - before the Canadiens took control of the game at both ends of the ice in the third period.

Christopher Higgins provided the offence with a pair of goals - his 20th and 21st of the season - and an assist while the Canadiens limited the Thrashers to only five shots over the final 20 minutes.

The win allowed the Canadiens to move one point behind the slumping Ottawa Senators in the battle for first place in the Northeast Division with 77 points.


As for the Thrashers, they fell fell nine points behind division leader Carolina in the Southeast and seven back of eighth-place Philadelphia.

Higgins snapped a 1-1 tie when Michael Ryder set him up for a power-play goal at 2:10 of the third period and he scored again at 4:56 when Andrei Markov's shot slipped through Kari Lehtonen's pads and Higgins was waiting on the other side.

Higgins returned the favour, setting up Markov on a power play at 8:17 and Sergei Kostitsyn completed the rout at 9:04.

The Canadiens opened the scoring when Maxim Lapierre, one of the players whose name was mentioned in speculation over the Canadiens' failed attempt to trade for the Thrashers' Marian Hossa, scored his fifth goal of the season at 12:47 of the opening period.

Lapierre did what a big man should do, taking up space in front of the net, and fighting for position after Lehtonen left a rebound off a shot by Josh Gorges. Lapierre corralled the loose puck and found enough room to score.

While Price said it as tough to lose a teammate, he said the passing of the trade deadline seem to lift a cloud from some players.

"There was definitely pressure taken off some guys," he said."When you have your name thrown around for a month, you feel the heat and it was a relief when (the deadline passed)."

The Canadiens' power play, which ranks No. 1 in the NHL, went 2-for-4 Tuesday night while the Thrashers went 1-for-4.

The Canadiens travel to Buffalo for a game Friday night. They return home to face the New Jersey Devils on Saturday before embarking on a four-game West Coast trip which will take them to San Jose, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Anaheim.

Salut HUET !