Fast Break

Junior hockey

Chiefs move up to No. 5 in CHL

The Spokane Chiefs moved up to fifth in this week’s Canadian Hockey League’s Top 10 rankings.

The Chiefs debuted in the rankings last week at No. 9 and earned five out of six possible points in three games last week with a pair of wins over the Seattle Thunderbirds and a shootout loss to the Vancouver Giants, the eighth-ranked team in the CHL.

The ranking is the highest for Spokane since it was fourth in November 2003.

The Chiefs are also the highest-ranked among Western Hockey League teams. Tri-City is sixth, Vancouver is eighth and Calgary is ninth.

Cape Breton is the top-ranked team in the CHL poll, which is selected by a panel of National Hockey League scouts.

This weekend begins a stretch of six straight home games when Spokane hosts the Kamloops Blazers on Friday and Everett Silvertips on Saturday.

Arenafootball2

Past, present Shock sign deals

The Spokane Shock, past and present, have been busy the past two days inking deals around the AFL and af2.

Among the transactions: Jerome Stevens will be back for a third season with the Shock, two standouts from last season – Kelvin Morris and Anthony Brown – joined the AFL’s Utah Blaze and Ed Ta’amu, a member of the Shock’s 2006 ArenaCup championship team, re-signed with the Kansas City Brigade.

Stevens is the sixth player to re-sign with the team from the 2007 roster, and the second player from the 2006 roster to join the team.

In 2007, Stevens had a knee injury that limited his play to eight games, in which he had 7.5 tackles, one sack, one pass break-up and one forced fumble.

Olympics

Rogge demands clean upgrades

Any athletes in line to get medals given up by Marion Jones must have no drug history themselves or the honors could be withheld.

“This is not going to be an automatic upgrade,” International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said Wednesday.

The decision by Rogge means Greek sprinter Katerina Thanou – at the center of her own drug scandal at the 2004 Athens Games – may not receive the 100-meter gold medal Jones won at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

“Every potential upgraded athlete will be scrutinized on his or her merits,” Rogge said during a conference call. “We want to upgrade athletes if we are absolutely sure that they are clean. Every case will be examined.”

Jones, who won three gold medals and two bronze in Sydney, confessed last month to using performance-enhancing drugs before the 2000 Olympics.