YAHOO SPORTS' Jay Hart noted Tony Stewart's win yesterday in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series AAA Texas 500 gives him four wins during the eight Chase races, but he is "not your points leader." NASCAR claimed its new points system this season "rewarded winning more." Hart: "It hasn't. In fact, the opposite is true, it's played out exactly as expected, and now NASCAR has some explaining to do." Once the Chase begins, "consistency trumps wins, evident by the fact Stewart trails" Carl Edwards by three points despite Edwards not having won a Chase race (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 11/6).
ASIA MINOR: The AP's Doug Ferguson reported the PGA Tour "no longer is looking for new tournaments in Asia" as it considers changing the schedule "so that a new season would start in the fall after the FedEx Cup is over." PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem said that if players "approve the idea of a fall start to the season, then it would be easy to give the HSBC Champions equal status as the other three World Golf Championships," including making prize money official. That would give the tour "two Asia stops ... which Finchem feels is adequate combined with the domestic tournaments." The "earliest a fall start could happen is 2013, and Finchem said much of that depends on a player meeting in January at Torrey Pines and the next policy board meeting in March" (AP, 11/6).
MEET AND GREET: The GLOBE & MAIL's David Shoalts reported NHL VP/Player Safety & Hockey Operations Brendan Shanahan met with Jets players and coaches Friday "to explain his approach to the job and the thinking that goes into the suspensions for things like hits to the head." Shanahan plans to meet with "all of the 30 NHL teams by the New Year to make sure everyone understands how he and the league operate when it comes to player discipline" (GLOBE & MAIL, 11/5).
