Off the wire

LITTLE ROCK — MOTOR SPORTS Busch to join new team

Kurt Busch is ready for yet another new ride. Furniture Row Racing hired Busch on Monday to drive for the Colorado-based team in 2013. Busch will replace Regan Smith in the No. 78 Chevrolet. Busch was the 2004 NASCAR champion, but he split with Penske Racing at the end of last season because of his many off-track incidents. He spent this season driving for Phoenix Racing in the Sprint Cup Series and his brother’s Kyle Busch Motorsports in the Nationwide Series, where he won twice. The 34-year-old Busch has said his goal this season was to prove he deserved a chance with another top-tier team. With so few seats available, Furniture Row became the best option. Busch will drive for his third team in three years when he takes the wheel for Furniture Row. Busch has won 24 Sprint Cup races, as well as the 2010 NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race. Busch is 25th in the points standings and has only one top-five finish in the Cup series this season. He served a one-week NASCAR suspension in June after for verbally abusing a media member. Busch was already on probation from an incident at Darlington in May - he was also fined $50,000 for reckless driving on pit road - and NASCAR decided his treatment to the reporter was in violation of his probation. Busch said he just wanted to have some fun driving the No. 51 for Phoenix while he rebuilt his image in the hope he could return to a top-tier organization next season. Busch parted ways with Penske Racing in the off season after six bumpy seasons. Busch was fired in the fallout of yet another embarrassing incident. A fan caught Busch on video verbally abusing an ESPN reporter during last month’s season finale, and Busch was fined $50,000 by NASCAR after the clip was posted on YouTube. Smith, who is 23rd in the points standings, has no top fives and only two top-10 finishes this season. He has Furniture Row’s only Cup race victory, winning in 2011 at Darlington Raceway. The34-year-old Busch qualified for the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship six times in the last nine years and won his lone Cup championship in only his third full season in the series.

Former Formula One driver Rubens Barrichello says he will participate in a stock car race in Brazil in December. The Brazilian, who finished 12th in his first IndyCar season, reached a deal with a local team to drive in the final race of the year at the Interlagos track Dec. 9. Barrichello will earn more than $100,000 for competing but will donate the money to charity. The 40-year-old Barrichello, who still hasn’t announced whether he will return to IndyCar next season, said Monday that “it will be an honor” to race in the local stock car series. Barrichello has said in the past that he wanted to race stock cars in Brazil after he ended his professional career abroad. He will begin testing in October.

BASKETBALL Seattle approves arena deal

The Seattle City Council has approved a deal to build a new arena designed to lure the NBA back to town. Council members voted 6-2 to approve investor Chris Hansen’s plan for a $490 million arena near the Seahawks and Mariners stadiums south of downtown. The plan calls for $200 million in public investment, and Hansen has personally guaranteed to cover the city’s debt if the arena’s finances don’t work out. The arena could also house an NHL team. Changes in the plan still must be approved by the King County Council, and it must pass an environmental review. But Hansen says city approval allows him to shop for a team that would replace the Super-Sonics. After four decades in Seattle, the Sonics moved to Oklahoma City in 2008 and became the Thunder.

Washington State point guard Reggie Moore was dismissed from the team Monday. Coach Ken Bone said Monday that the senior was dismissed for violation of team rules. “Reggie has been an important part of the basketball program for the last three years and I wish him the very best in the future,” Bone said in a news release. Washington State spokesman Jessica Schmick declined to provide additional details about the dismissal. A Seattle native, Moore became a starter his freshman year, when he averaged 12 points per game and ranked fifth in the Pac-10 with 4.2 assists per game. He averaged 9 points his sophomore season. Last year, the 6-1 guard averaged 10 points, third on the Cougars, and 5 assists a game. Two years ago, Moore served a one-game suspension for marijuana possession.

Saint Louis interim coach Jim Crews added Jim Platt, one of his former longtime assistants, to the staff. Platt has nine years of head coaching experience, the latest at Charleston Southern from 2000-05 and was an assistant at Army in 2005-2010, with four of those seasons under Crews. Last season he was the director of basketball operations at Liberty. Crews is filling in for Rick Majerus, who took a medical leave of absence in August while undergoing evaluation for an ongoing heart condition in California. Saint Louis was 24-8 last season and made its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2000.

Los Angeles Lakers guard Steve Blake will be sidelined for at least three weeks after puncturing his left foot on a spike strip in a parking garage. The Lakers announced Blake’s injury Monday. The veteran point guard will be held out of any impact exercises for about three weeks. Los Angeles opens training camp next Monday with its first preseason game Oct. 7. Newly acquired center Dwight Howard also won’t be participating immediately in Lakers camp while recuperating from off season back surgery. Blake is expected to be Steve Nash’s backup this season. Blake averaged 5.2 points and 3.3 assists last season for the Lakers in his second season with the club while primarily backing up Derek Fisher (Little Rock Parkview, UALR) and Ramon Sessions. Blake is heading into his 10th NBA season.

Trudi Lacey is finished as the general manager and coach of the Washington Mystics after a 5-29 season. The Mystics announced Monday they will not renew Lacey’s contract - or her assistants’ deals - after finishing this season with the WNBA’s worst record. Washington went 6-26 in 2011. Owner Sheila Johnson says the team is “looking forward to a fresh start.” HOCKEY Talks hit another snag

A face-to-face meeting between top officials from the NHL and NHL Players’ Association wasn’t enough to break their labor stalemate. The sides spent almost five hours together Monday going over accounting for last season, but didn’t emerge with any plan to resume negotiations on a new collective bargaining agreement to end the lockout. The topic wasn’t even raised, according to representatives from each group. Nine days into the lockout, negotiations remain on hold with owners and players entrenched in their positions. “Obviously, we’ve got to talk before you can get a deal, so I think it’s important to get the talks going again,” NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said. “But you also have to have something to say. I think it’s fair to say we feel like we need to hear from the players’ association in a meaningful way because I don’t think that they’ve really moved off their initial proposal, which was made more than a month ago.” Steve Fehr, the NHLPA’s special counsel, declined comment following the meeting. NHLPA head Donald Fehr and Commissioner Gary Bettman didn’t attend the meeting, but they were expected to see each other at an NHL alumni dinner Monday night. Daly suggested they might discuss a timeline then for resuming talks. The sides last sat down together Sept. 12, when the union presented a proposal that was quickly countered by the league.Neither offer moved talks closer to an agreement, and the NHL locked out the players three days later. Not only are the sides far apart on financial issues - they are roughly $1 billion apart based on the latest proposals - but they have also failed to find agreement on the process. While the league has remained adamant about the need for the sides to discuss only the economic system that governs the sport, the union has said it would be willing to continue negotiations on the other aspects of the agreement that need to be worked out.

With plans for a new arena in doubt, the Edmonton Oilers say they are considering other potential new homes for the team. Oilers owner Daryl Katz, team President Patrick LaForge and Kevin Lowe, president of hockey operations, are in Seattle for meetings about a possible relocation to the city. The Oilers said in a statement that while they hope to reach a deal with Edmonton on a new arena, the team is also listening to proposals from a number of potential NHL markets.The Seattle City Council approved hedge-fund manager Chris Hansen’s plan for a $490 million arena Monday that both sides hope will host an NBA and NHL team in the future. The Oilers and the city of Edmonton had agreed on plans for a proposed $475 million arena that would begin construction early next year. But the arena and the Oilers’ future in the city were thrown into doubt earlier this month when the team told the Edmonton city council it wanted millions of dollars in new concessions from taxpayers.