Perhaps Baldwin has enlisted the help of Hollywood in promoting the Hartford Whalers name. Actress Megan Fox was spotted wearing a Whalers t-shirt in Los Angeles on Saturday by totalprosports.com.

A former owner of the National Hockey League’s Hartford Whalers apparently wants to get controlling interest in the American Hockey League’s Hartford Wolf Pack, change the name to the Whalers and work towards bringing the Hartford Whalers back to the NHL.

Howard Baldwin, who bought the Whalers in 1972 and sold his interest in the team in 1988, has been barnstorming the state of Connecticut, along with former Whaler Bob Crawford, trying to revive the name and gain interest in bringing an NHL team back.

However, it appears that the Carolina Hurricanes hold the trademarks and the rights to the name. The newer Whalers jerseys you sometimes see at Hurricanes’ games are produced by Reebok CCM, which has exclusive rights to make NHL jerseys. The rights are still managed by NHL Properties plus, presumably, the Hurricanes – being the trademark holder – receive profits from the sale of the jerseys and other paraphernalia.

It’s ironic that an effort to revitalize the Whalers name would actually profit the man that is blamed for taking the Whalers from Hartford and moving them to North Carolina. Peter Karmanos got controlling interest of the Whalers in 1994 and, after disputes with the city, including failed efforts to build a new arena, he moved the Whalers to North Carolina and changed the name to the Carolina Hurricanes. The franchise has been more successful in Raleigh with the Hurricanes winning the Stanley Cup in 2006.

If Baldwin is able to get the Hartford Wolf Pack franchise (ironic name isn’t it) and does attempt to change the name to the Whalers, will the NHL and the Carolina Hurricanes object? I would think they would have to.

This isn’t a situation such as when the Cleveland Browns moved to Baltimore to become the Ravens. In that case, the league kept the Browns name and trademarks in hiatus until a new ownership team could bring a team back to Cleveland. In this case, the Hartford Whalers are the Carolina Hurricanes.

Interestingly, however, it appears that neither the Hurricanes nor the NHL combine the Whalers with the Hurricanes in compiling all-time team stats. Even though Johnny Unitas requested that his records be taken off the “Indianapolis Colts” all-time stats, the Baltimore Colts stats did carry over to Indianapolis.

I feel for the people who lost their beloved Whalers. But the Hartford Whalers, during their 17-year history in the NHL, recorded only three winning seasons and while loyal fans were rabid, attendance couldn’t help but be hurt. Plus, the Hartford Wolf Pack was a poor 18th in attendance in the 30-team AHL last season.

While it seems like a long shot that a different Hartford Whalers team will be admitted into the NHL, the rich and powerful Baldwin, who has run Baldwin Entertainment in Los Angeles for the past 20 years, could put up a good fight. And the drama surrounding the effort could end up in court with the Carolina Hurricanes being a prominent player.

By the way, the Hartford Courant is doing its part in keeping the Hartford Whalers name alive by creating an online home for those loyal to the Whalers. On Wednesday courant.com will launch http://www.courant.com/whalers.

At Capital Sports, we’re fans of the new look of GoPack.com, the official N.C. State website that suddenly has this super glitzy feel. But it all gets down to having good information, right?

So there is a pretty interesting read there now on the N.C. State women’s basketball team. Say what you want about Lee Fowler, but he made a bold move when he hired Kellie Harper as coach. Now the NCSU women’s team is meeting four times a week … at 6 a.m. … to lift weights.

Yikes.

“We have a different kind of team unity and chemistry when we are in the weight room,” junior guard Emili Tasler told GoPack editor Tim Peeler. “We are all helping each other get through our sets. We are trying to be more vocal with each other. Getting up and going to lift at 6 a.m. is difficult, but we are getting stuff done.”

So just remember that the next morning when you get up to get coffee … the Wolfpack women are well ahead of you.

North Carolina’s depth has taken a hit after all. UNC freshman running back Giovani Bernard tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee Sunday afternoon and is out for the season, the school announced Monday morning.

Carolina still has plenty of depth at tailback this year, with Shaun Draughn and Ryan Houston, but Bernard was considered an elite talent and one of the Tar Heels’ top recruits.

North Carolina is ranked No. 18 in the preseason coaches’ poll, and when you watch the Tar Heels on the practice field, that number seems low. UNC has the talent, and depth, to contend for a BCS bowl.

This is evident across the practice field. Redshirt freshman Bryn Renner looks smooth and poised at quarterback. If he’s not starting against LSU, you know he’ll be playing if T.J. Yates struggles.

Ryan Houston looks leaner at running back, and both he and Shaun Draughn have plenty of experience there. The line, a real problem last year, will be better. Carl Gaskins missed all of last season with a knee injury, but he’s a quick, strong athlete scheduled to start at left tackle. UNC has three returning starters on the line – guard Alan Pelc, center Jonathan Cooper and tackle Mike Ingersoll – and there is more quality depth than in the past.

The receivers are a year older, and that will help. And everyone knows about the defense. There is just an abundance of talent at UNC that is reminiscent of the last years of Mack Brown.

Given that, Davis said, “We can be tougher on them. We’re going to challenge them. We want to encourage competition in practice.”

Now, lots of football teams look great in “shells;” that is, just helmets and shorts. But the relentless preseason focus on Marvin Austin’s antics has overshadowed UNC’s development. How the season plays out may depend on two factors beyond the NCAA probe.

The first is how coach Butch Davis manages this season. The UNC staff had a dreadful stretch last season, losing three of four games in the middle of the year. Those losses included a horrible performance against a bad Virginia team and a second-half implosion against Florida State on national TV.

But Davis and his staff rallied the team after that, and what could have been a real downer of a year turned into an eight-win effort.

This year, Carolina faces the challenge of working through the NCAA investigation while focusing on a schedule that could derail its season right away. That LSU, Georgia Tech, at Rutgers, East Carolina stretch could evaporate the hopes of many teams.

But then you see Carolina on the field – and you think, they might be able to handle that after all.

The USA Collegiate Baseball team, which trains in Cary, finished its summer league play with a 10th-inning loss to Cuba in the Gold Medal game of the World University Baseball Championships in Toyko.

Cuba’s Alfredo Despaigne hit a three-tun homer in the bottom of the 10th to give Cuba a 4-3 victory. Under a rather silly International Baseball Federation’s tie-break rule, base runners are placed at first and second with no outs from the 10th inning on. (The batting order also changes.) The USA scraped a pair of runs across in the top of the 10th before the three-run blast with one out.

Proponents of the rules say that delays from extra inning contests cause scheduling and logistical nightmares that include security, transportation, drug testing, broadcasts and entertainment. Yeah, well, too bad – play baseball or don’t play baseball but don’t make junk up. An entire summer of play came down to this and it was decided by some stilted rule of expediency. Yes, both teams played by the same rules but, come on, that wasn’t baseball.

Cuban accounts of the game indicate that Japanese fans, who saw their team lose 4-2 to the Americans in the semis, supported the Cubans in the finals. Maybe Japanese players should go play in the Cuban league instead of the American or National leagues, right?

The USA finished the season with a 16-3 mark including seven consecutive victories before the Gold Medal loss.

The only ACC team represented on the US squad was Clemson whose Brad Miller had the team’s highest batting average at .441 in 14 games played, including seven started. (As an aside, the team’s press officer was East Carolina’s Malcolm Gray.)

Even though he went to four Super Bowls (winning three) and even though he played for the Washington Redskins, who were shown on TV in the Triangle area every week during his playing days from 1981-91, Russ Grimm got little play in the area media after being inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame yesterday.

At WRAL-TV, veteran sportscaster Ken Medlin, who grew up in North Carolina and should realize the high volume of Redskins fans in the area, devoted exactly four seconds to Grimm while almost all of the long report was spent on Dallas’ Emmitt Smith and San Francisco’s Jerry Rice.

Smith and Rice are certainly higher profile nationally and deserve all the accolades they get but area sports reporters should realize that the Redskins were North Carolina’s home team for 50 years including the time Grimm spent with the Skins. Therefore, more effort should have been made to report on Grimm.

The News & Observer’s headline reads, “Rice and Smith enter Hall of Fame.” The Associated Press national writer, who wrote the piece, got around to giving information about Grimm in the 33rd paragraph of his article. Perhaps that’s understandable from a nationwide slant but, again, area media should be more in touch with their audience.

WTVD, at least during its 11 p.m. sports report, did not even mention the Hall of Fame induction ceremonies at all. Interestingly, on WTVD’s website, the exact AP article ran but under the headline “Rice, LeBeau, Grimm inducted into Hall of Fame.” Maybe the web poster hates Dallas, not sure, but the article still didn’t get around to Grimm until the 33rd graph.

The exact same national story ran on the NBC17 website (if you have the patience to find it). In years gone by, each media outlet would have a different story, and at least a little different take. But there are fewer and fewer traditional journalists these days and we’ll probably be seeing more identical reports from a national perspective.

It’s a shame. Grimm was a hero to many a youngster in this neck of the woods. He was a member of the famous “Hogs” offensive line and is the first one to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

This class is arguably the strongest in the history of the Hall of Fame with Grimm, Rice, Smith, Dick LeBeau, Rickey Jackson, John Randle and Floyd Little being inducted. To read more about Grimm, go to the Washington Post’s story here.

(As a reminder, the Triangle area of North Carolina, as proven by a DirecTV study, has the biggest contingent of Redskins fans outside the D.C. area.)

Walk in Kenan Stadium now and you’re in for a shock. The old Spanish style field house in the East end zone is gone, replaced by bulldozers, temporary trailers and a lot of greasy mud. It’s part of Carolina’s New Kenan project to build luxury suites and an academic building where the old fieldhouse stood.

The place is sure to look even swanker once the project is completed, but it’s still sad to see the old-style building go. Kenan, unlike many modern football stadiums, still retains a historic look and feel, and that aura will be different once the new facility is ready.

Five ACC teams were selected to the preseason USA Today football coaches poll which was announced Friday. This marked the first time since 2004 that the ACC had five teams picked among the preseason poll’s Top 20, the league announced in a news release. The ACC led all conferences with five schools selected in the Top 20, while the SEC had the most total Top 25 picks with six.

Virginia Tech led the way for ACC schools, being tabbed for 6th place on the inaugural 2010 coaches poll, followed by Miami (13th), Georgia Tech (17th), North Carolina (18th) and Florida State (20th). Additionally, Clemson (31st) and Boston College were among schools receiving votes in the poll.

The last time the ACC had five schools in the Top 20 of the preseason coaches poll was in 2004 when Miami (5th), Florida State (6th), Clemson (16th), Virginia (19th) and Maryland (20th) were chosen.

The ACC had five teams selected to the pre-season USA Today coaches Top 25 in 2005, but only three of the teams—Virginia Tech (7th), Miami (8th) and Florida State (12th)–were among the Top 20, with Boston College ranked 22nd and Virginia 23rd.

In all, ACC teams will play 10 schools in 2010 ranked in the pre-season Top 25 including No. 1 Alabama (Duke, Sept. 18), No. 2 Ohio State (Miami, Sept. 11), No. 3 Florida (Florida State (Nov. 27), No. 5 Boise State (Virginia Tech, Sept. 6), No. 8 Oklahoma (Florida State, Sept. 11), No. 15 Pittsburgh (Miami, Sept. 23), No. 16 LSU (North Carolina, Sept. 4), No. 21 Georgia (Georgia Tech, Nov. 27), No. 23 Auburn (Clemson, Sept. 18), and No. 24 West Virginia (Maryland, Sept. 18).

The Conference will also play no fewer than 19 games against teams which were ranked or received votes in the pre-season USA Today coaches poll.

Check back Friday afternoon for updates from Chapel Hill as UNC holds its first football practice. The Tar Heels are on the field at 1:30 p.m. and will speak to the media at 3:30 p.m.

Marvin Austin and Greg Little will practice, and of course a great deal of the media questions will be about the NCAA investigation even though Carolina has said only athletics director Dick Baddour will talk on the subject.

More coming this afternoon …