Briefly

The new-look National Hockey League has some brand new players in the free-agent market.

Two of the NHL’s three youngest franchises jumped into the fray on a busy Tuesday as the Columbus Blue Jackets nabbed top-flight defenseman Adam Foote, and the Atlanta Thrashers signed rugged forward Bobby Holik.

On Monday, the first day of the free-agent shopping season, only the Florida Panthers made major news when they signed forwards Joe Nieuwendyk and Gary Roberts away from Toronto.

But several teams got in the mix on Day 2, trying to fill up their new $39 million salary cap.

“In the old system, without a salary cap, more teams would have been involved in it and who knows where the numbers would have ended up,” Atlanta Thrashers general manager Don Waddell said. “But the new system with the salary cap I think puts more teams on an equal ground because we all have the same amount of money to spend.”

Leading free-agent forwards Peter Forsberg and Mike Modano and top defenseman Scott Niedermayer were still weighing offers – some that might allow them to sign for the maximum of $7.8 million for next season. No player may earn more than 20 percent of a team’s salary cap.

The Red Wings brought back their oldest player, signing captain Steve Yzerman and ensuring he will play his 22nd season in Detroit.

•The Russian hockey federation refused to sign the player transfer agreement between the NHL and the International Ice Hockey Federation, a move the sport’s governing body said could jeopardize the NHL’s participation at the 2006 Olympics.

The Russians – the only European federation to reject the deal between the IIHF and the NHL – didn’t sign because their clubs unanimously rejected it at a meeting Monday.

•The Prince George Cougars of the Western Hockey League announced the termination of head coach Lane Lambert’s contract. Lambert is in negotiations to join the staff of the AHL’s Bridgeport Sound Tigers, an affiliate of the NHL’s New York Islanders.

College basketball

NCAA, NIT at odds

A lawyer for the NIT took a shot at restoring the tournament’s lost luster, telling a jury in New York that the NCAA’s March Madness was purposefully ruining it.

Jeffrey Kessler, a lawyer for the five schools which sponsor the preseason and postseason National Invitation Tournaments, said the NCAA “willfully, deliberately set out to get a monopoly, to eliminate competition, to make it impossible to compete.”

In a civil case projected to feature testimony from college presidents, coaches, athletic directors and economists, the NIT – the older of the two tournaments – is asking a jury to find that the NCAA violated federal antitrust laws.

The NIT is challenging a long-standing NCAA rule requiring schools to accept a bid to its tournament over a bid to all others.

•Emily Niemann, who helped Baylor win the women’s national championship four months ago, sent team officials an e-mail saying she wants to transfer.

The school isn’t allowing it. Still, it appears the 6-foot-1 forward has played her last game for the Lady Bears.

Football

Longtime coach dies

James Horace Moore Jr., who coached several sports, including football, at the University of the South for more than 30 years, died Saturday at 78 in Sewanee, Tenn.

Moore was the football coach from 1956-87 and had a record of 260-200-2. He also coached golf, tennis, track and field and wrestling.

•Chris Wright, a former Canadian Football League player, was killed in a weekend shooting, police said.

Authorities said Wright, 34, of Valdosta, Ga., was found dead of multiple gunshots wounds about 4 a.m. Sunday. No arrests were made.

Miscellany

IAAF set to meet

The governing body of track and field will consider lifetime bans for first-time steroid offenders, changes to the false-start rule and tougher regulations for nationality switches.

The issues will come up for a vote today and Thursday when the International Association of Athletics Federations meets before Saturday’s start of the world championships in Helsinki, Finland.

Sports People

Jockey Bejarano injured

Rafael Bejarano, one of the nation’s leading jockeys, has a broken ankle and will miss the final five weeks of the racing meet at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. … Professional surfer Anthony Ruffo, 41, was arrested in Santa Cruz, Calif., and charged with selling methamphetamine after narcotics agents entered his house and said they found a trail of the drug leading to the bathroom where he was flushing the toilet.