OAKLAND, Calif. -- The Tampa Bay Rays have granted Hideki Matsui his release. Matsui was designated for assignment last week and manager Joe Maddon said Wednesday that the team released Matsui at his request. Matsui is now free to sign with any team. The 38-year-old was batting .147 with two homers and seven RBIs and was hitless in his last 16 trips to the plate. Wholesale Jerseys . -- Different horse, same result for Luis Contreras. Cheap Jerseys . Harden had 31 points and seven assists to lead the Rockets to a 104-92 victory over the New Orleans Hornets on Wednesday night. http://www.cheapchinajerseys.us.com/[/... . Seattle had already wrapped up a spot in the quarterfinals. Michel Brown scored late in the first half for Marathon, and David Estrada added a second-half goal for Seattle. The Sounders joined Mexican teams Monterrey and Santos Laguna with 4-0-0 records. [url=http://www.cheapchinajerseys.us.com/]Cheap Jerseys China .H. -- Jeff Gordon came into the media centre after winning the pole in New Hampshire and found that the moderator was not yet at his post. Cheap NFL Jerseys from china .C. Place Stadium since joining the Whitecaps. The Scottish midfielder scored in his second straight home game with a penalty kick in the 63rd minute Sunday to give Vancouver a 2-1 win over the San Jose Earthquakes.TORONTO - With no end in sight to the NHL lockout, the league is doing all it can to ease the concerns of its sponsors. A small group of key clients gathered Wednesday afternoon in Toronto for an audience with chief operating officer John Collins, who provided an update on labour negotiations and took questions from participants. A source indicated that representatives from Molson, Canadian Tire, Sport Chek, Kraft, Sirius XM and Scotiabank participated in the meeting. One attendee called the session "productive" and applauded Collins for taking part. "They were very transparent with us," said the source, who requested anonymity. "I was looking around the room and the long-term, cumulative contract dollars around the table were probably at the $100-million mark. Its a significant chunk of change for the league." The sponsors are an important group for the NHL to interact with during the labour dispute. Commissioner Gary Bettman and deputy commissioner Bill Daly have held a series of conference calls with business partners in recent months in an effort to keep everyone informed. Sponsorships played a significant role in the immense growth the league enjoyed after the 2004-05 lockout. Twenty-two new partners signed on with the NHL over that period as it moved towards a calendar built around signature events, such as the Winter Classic and revamped all-star weekend. With the NHL on hold, sponsors have been forced to abandon plans to activate against the league and some have started channelling money into other projects. Typically, campaigns and product launches take months to pull together — posing a problem for league partners given the uncertainty brought on by the lockout. "We dont know when the end line is," said the source. At this pooint, no one does.dddddddddddd Talks broke off quickly in New York on Tuesday and Donald Fehr, the NHLPAs executive director, returned to Toronto that night. Bettman and Daly remain in New York and the sides have made no formal plans to meet again. Negotiations have yet to even really get off the ground despite the fact the lockout is almost three weeks old and the scheduled Oct. 11 start to the regular season will almost certainly be postponed before the end of the week. The primary reason behind the standoff is that the NHL wants to see salaries reduced immediately while the union believes all existing contracts should be honoured. As a result, the NHLPA is unwilling to consider an immediate rollback or any system that would see players pay more money in escrow. "The owners have signed all these individual contracts and now they want to change the rules so the players dont get what theyre supposed to be paid under the contracts," Fehr told The Canadian Press this week. "How do you deal with that? Does a player get to say `Well, OK, my salary loss was more than I thought it would be, I can leave? "Does he have to go to work if theyre not going to pay him what they say they were? This is pretty basic stuff here." The league, meanwhile, is calling for another proposal from the players. The NHLPA tabled its original offer Aug. 14 — and amended it days before the lockout started at midnight ET on Sept. 15 — and the NHL believes its time to see something new. "Were trying to be as creative as we can be and we want to think of ways to approach the issue," Daly said Tuesday. "But, unless and until we hear from them and they make some movement or show some willingness to compromise Im not sure how we get this done." ' ' '