ERST LESEN! » xceptions to a potential Russian ban -- notab

DAVIE, Fla. -- University of Michigan alum Stephen Ross has the Wolverines fight song for his ring tone, and it went off as his other team -- the Miami Dolphins -- was about to take the field for the first training camp practice Friday morning.The Dolphins owner pulled his cellphone out of his pocket and answered the call.Hello, Jim? Ross said.Ross was joking, although he and Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh do talk often. And Harbaugh wont be the Dolphins next coach, Ross said, because it would be too awkward prying him away from Ann Arbor.Hes not coming here, Ross said. Ive got my name on too many building up there. But we dont have to worry -- we have a great guy.Thats to be determined, starting with Fridays practice. The Dolphins opened camp under Adam Gase, their ninth coach since 2004, and his assignment is to end an eight-year playoff drought.In July, even the Dolphins are optimistic.Everybody starts undefeated and with great expectations, Ross said. This year Im particularly excited. I think weve done a lot in the organization over the last year. Im excited as I can be.The Dolphins promoted Chris Grier to general manager in January, and he and executive vice president of football operations Mike Tannenbaum have brought in 45 new players for the new coaching staff.Gase began sorting it all out on a typically sweltering summer morning. The energy level was high, and sustaining that will be the challenge, Gase said.The first day of practice, everybodys excited to get back out there, Gase said. The telling parts going to be when were about six or seven days into this thing and in full pads. Where are we going to be then?Word of the first reinforcement came during practice, when the Dolphins learned defensive end Dion Jordan has been reinstated by the NFL after serving a suspension for 15 months for his latest violation of the leagues substance abuse policy. Jordan can participate in meetings and conditioning work immediately, and is expected to join practice soon.Miami began camp without five players who went on the active-physically unable to perform list, including four-time Pro Bowl running back Arian Foster, who is recovering from Achilles tendon surgery last season. Also put on PUP were cornerbacks Bobby McCain and Xavien Howard, running back Damien Williams and linebacker Zach Vigil.All are day to day, Gase said, which means they could join practice soon.The absences of McCain and Howard compound worries at cornerback, perhaps Miamis thinnest position. And theres little experience at running back without Foster, who signed a $1.5 million, one-year deal this month with Miami and is expected to compete for backup duty behind second-year pro Jay Ajayi.Despite the injuries, camp began with players confident the Dolphins are headed in the right direction under their new coach.The culture were building is good, quarterback Ryan Tannehill said. I think that guys have the right mindset as a team.Reviews of the squads condition were mixed. Among those making a positive impression was four-time Pro Bowl defensive end Cameron Wake, who is only nine months removed from Achilles tendon surgery.It doesnt surprise me, because the guy is a physical freak, Gase said.But when asked if everyone passed the conditioning test, Gase managed a weak smile.Maybe not, he said.---AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org and http://twitter.com/AP-NFL---Follow Steven Wine on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Steve-Wine. His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/steven-wine Wholesale Packers Jerseys . It just didnt show when he hit the ice. Berra made 42 saves and Kris Russell scored at 1:32 of overtime, lifting the Calgary Flames to a 3-2 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday night. Green Bay Packers Shirts . Any real chance at payback wont come until the playoff. Still, Pittsburgh knows its taut 3-2 win over the Bruins on Wednesday night is a pretty good place to start laying the groundwork. "They are a very good defensive team," Penguins forward Brandon Sutter said. https://www.packersjerseysale.com/ . Ibaka equaled a career high with 20 rebounds, adding four blocked shots and 15 points as the Thunder smothered the Milwaukee Bucks offence in a 92-79 victory Saturday night. Custom Green Bay Packers Jerseys . Wilson hit Schenn from behind during Tuesday nights game in Philadelphia, earning a five-minute major for charging and a game misconduct. He has a phone hearing with the department of player safety, which limits any potential suspension to five or fewer games. Packers Jerseys China . Jeff Green scored 13 points and Kris Humphries 12 for the Celtics, who nearly blew an 18-point, second-half lead. Sullingers 20-20 was the first by a Celtics player since Kevin Garnetts first game in Boston in 2007. Garnett was dealt -- along with Paul Pierce -- to Brooklyn during the off-season. A scathing report outlining a state-sanctioned doping system in Russia prompted immediate calls for the nations entire team to be sidelined from the Summer Games, raising the possibility that the Olympics could go on without a sports superpower for the first time since the 1980s.The investigation released Monday confirmed a scheme run out of the anti-doping lab in Moscow that ensnared 28 summer and winter sports, from track to snowboarding to table tennis. It lasted at least four years and involved at least 312 positive tests that went unreported at the behest of higher-ups in the countrys sports ministry.A mind-blowing level of corruption within both Russian sport and government, said Travis Tygart, the CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.The World Anti-Doping Agency swiftly called for the International Olympic Committee to consider a full ban of the Russian team from the Summer Olympics, which start Aug. 5 in Rio de Janiero. IOC president Thomas Bach said the committee wouldnt hesitate to apply the toughest sanctions available.The IOC executive board will meet Tuesday to begin sorting through options.Its no sure thing the Russians will receive a blanket ban. Its a decision filled with political ramifications that involve a key Olympic country. It puts the IOC in the position of ruling against against one of its biggest supporters, a nation that spent more than $50 billion hosting the Winter Games in Sochi just two years ago. Not since the back-to-back boycotts by the United States in 1980, then the Soviet Union in 1984, have the Olympics been contested without one of its biggest players.Bach has frequently spoken about the fine line between collective responsibility and individual justice. And for every anti-doping agency and athlete group calling for a full ban, theres seemingly another sports organization or leader urging restraint.The right to participate at the games cannot be stolen from an athlete, who has duly qualified and has not been found guilty of doping, said Bruno Grandi, president of gymnastics international federation. Blanket bans have never been and will never be just.Gymnastics was not among the sports listed in the report. Wrestling, meanwhile, accounted for 28 of the 312 unreported positives. The head of that international federation, Nenad Lalovic of Serbia, told The Associated Press we will absolutely follow the decisions of the IOC.But in making decisions about Russias team as a whole, the IOC could put onus on the international sports federations to determine the penalties.In the ongoing case involving Russias track team, it was that sports federation, the IAAF, that ultimately banned the team from the Olympics. But 68 Russian track-and-field athletes are appealing this week to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to compete in Rio, with a decision due Thursday. In a move that accentuates how complicated the matter can become, the IOC has said there is no contingency for a large group of Russians competing under a neutral flag -- that Russians should compete for the Russian team if theyre allowed in.Mondays report, commissioned by WADA and written by arbitrator Richard McLaren, said allegations made by Moscows former anti-doping lab director about sample switching at the Sochi Olympics went much as described in a New York Times story in May. That program involved dark-of-night bottle tampering in order to switch dirty samples with clean ones; it prevented Russian athletes, including more than a dozen medal winners, from testing positive.ddddddddddddBut McLaren said the bottle tampering in Sochi was a one-shot deal. Meanwhile, he described tactics he labeled disappearing positive methodology that began in 2011, shortly after Russias disappointing performance at the Vancouver Olympics. It included the 2013 track world championships in Moscow and was in place as recently as the 2015 swimming world championships in Kazan -- when everyone in Russian sports knew they were under the doping microscope.Russias deputy minister of sports, Yuri Nagornykh, who was also part of Russias Olympic Committee, would direct workers at the Moscow lab of which positive samples to send through to be reported to WADA and which to hold back. Assisting the plan was Russias national security service -- the FSB, the current version of the Soviet Unions KGB.The Moscow laboratory was effectively caught up in the jaws of a vice, the report said. It was a key player in the successful operation of a state imposed and rigorously controlled program, which was overall managed and dictated by the (Ministry of Sport).Yes, McLaren wrote, it could be made to seem as though workers at the laboratory were acting alone. But his investigation undercut that theory.The Moscow Laboratory personnel acted as they did because, as (one) witness expressed, if they did not, they would no longer be employed there, he concluded.On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said officials named as directly responsible in the doping scheme would be suspended. He asked for more information from WADA so Russia could conduct its own investigation.McLaren said out of 577 positive sample screenings he had access to, 312 positive results were held back -- or labeled Save by the lab workers. More than 250 of the 312 Saves came from track and field and weightlifting, but other sports involved included swimming, rowing, snowboarding -- even table tennis.McLaren suggested the numbers could have been higher, but he had only 57 days for his investigation.Time is crucial because the Olympics begin Aug. 5, and decisions about Russias participation in Rio must be made.WADA president Craig Reedie, who is also an IOC member, said WADA is working to establish guidelines that will help the IOC and international sports federations identify exceptions to a potential Russian ban -- notably, athletes who trained in other countries that had robust, clean anti-doping systems. Those athletes, WADA said, should be allowed to compete in Rio under a neutral flag.McLaren said he was unwaveringly confident in his report, and insisted there was no leak, as several sports leaders suggested over the weekend, when draft letters calling for Russias ban were leaked to the media.One of the letters co-signers was Paul Melia, who heads Canadas anti-doping organization and was in Toronto for McLarens presentation.Im shocked and devastated by whats been going on, Melia said. And I can only imagine how betrayed the clean athletes of the world are feeling today in the face of this evidence.---AP Sports Writers Luke Meredith, Will Graves and Graham Dunbar and correspondent Charmaine Noronha contributed to this report. ' ' '