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FRISCO, Texas -- Glen Gulutzan couldnt end the longest playoff drought in franchise history for the Dallas Stars and the second-year coach didnt hold the option on the remaining season in his contract. When the general manager who hired him was dumped two weeks ago, Gulutzans firing looked like the inevitable next step in an overhaul of the staff and it came Tuesday in an announcement from new general manager Jim Nill. He nevertheless said the move wasnt a foregone conclusion in his mind. "Thats why this process took so long," Nill said. "I needed to do my homework. I needed to get to know everybody. Its tough when you come into a new situation. I wanted to be fair to everyone." The Stars missed the playoffs in both of Gulutzans seasons, making it five straight years without a post-season trip for a franchise that crammed 73 playoff games into a four-year stretch a little more than a decade ago. Joe Nieuwendyk was a prominent member of those Stars teams, winning the Conn Smythe trophy as playoff MVP when Dallas won the Stanley Cup in 1999. He didnt come close to replicating that success as general manager, finally getting replaced by Nill after four years of missing the playoffs. Gulutzan was the second of two failed coaching hires for Nieuwendyk, who fired Dave Tippett when he arrived and hired Marc Crawford, a Stanley Cup winner with Colorado in 1995. Crawford brought a tougher style than the player-friendly Tippett, but he missed the playoffs in both his seasons while Tippett took Phoenix to the post-season the first three years after the Stars let him go. The hiring of Gulutzan when he was 39 was seen as a move back to the players side. He was plucked from the Stars top affiliate, the Texas Stars of the AHL, after eight seasons as a head coach in the minor leagues. Dallas was in contention late in both his seasons, but faltered down the stretch. He was 64-57-9, including 22-22-4 in the lockout-shortened 2013 season. The Stars controlled their playoff fate with five games remaining each year under Gulutzan, but went 0-9-1 in those 10 games. Assistant coach Paul Jerrard also was fired, while assistant coach Curt Fraser and goaltending coach Mike Valley will stay with the club. The new head coach will inherit a playoff drought thats now two seasons longer than the previous record of three straight from 1973-76, when the franchise was in Minnesota. "Things have to change here," Nill said. "It hasnt been right. Were in the business to win here. Were going to put something in place to start that process." Nill said he met with Gulutzan about five times before delivering his decision Tuesday. "We had some good discussions," Nill said. "Its part of the business. Sometimes you have to go through peaks and valleys. In the end, this is going to make him a better coach." Nieuwendyk tried to get Dallas back to the playoffs this year by adding veterans Jaromir Jagr, Derek Roy and Ray Whitney, but ended up trading Jagr, Roy and longtime captain Brenden Morrow with the team languishing at the trading deadline. The Stars made an improbable surge to stay alive with a much younger roster, and many of those players -- led by forward Jamie Benn -- are likely to be part of the rebuilding under Nill, who spent 15 years as an assistant GM with Detroit. The Red Wings have the longest playoff streak in North American pro sports at 22 years. "The nice thing is the slate is clean," Nill said. "We dont have a lot of contracts that tie our hands. We know the positions weve got to get better in. Were fortunate in that we have a good young foundation. Were just going to continue to make that foundation stronger." Nill said he isnt in a hurry to hire a coach and wont necessarily swing back to a coach with NHL experience after Gulutzan couldnt translate his AHL success to the higher level. "Its going to be wide open," Nill said. "There have been some great young coaches that have come in and done some great things with teams. I need to be wide open to that aspect." DeAaron Fox Kings Jersey . Despite the cost, effort and an improved steroid test, its possible that very few -- if any -- positives will be detected, Dr. Richard Budgett told The Associated Press in an interview. "We just dont know what the results from Torino will be," Budgett said. 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Turner Sports and WME|IMGs televised Counter-Strike: Global Offensive league, ELeague, has announced the schedule for its second season, which is set to begin Sept. 7 with the televised portion beginning Oct. 21.Preliminary rounds for the event, which will not be televised, will begin Sept. 7 in Europe and Sept. 14 in North America. These rounds, which will feature 16 teams from each region, will act as a qualifier for the televised group stages.From there, the league will seed into four groups (moving away from the first seasons six groups), with competition taking place from Oct. 21 to Nov. 19. The group stage will be cut down to two days of the week instead of four, with the televised portion at 10 p.m. ET on Fridays, and the non-televised portion taking place on Saturdays.Playoffs begin on Nov. 29, with semifinals on Dec. 2 and finals on Dec. 3.In our second season, weve enhanced the schhedule to make the stakes even higher from a competitive standpoint, while also creating an opportunity for a more open field, Christina Alejandre, ELeague general manager and Turner Sports vice president of esports, said in a news release.dddddddddddd We believe this new format will keep our audience engaged with our content from the opening week through the grand finals and be more accommodating to team and player schedules.The league has cut down its televised participants and its season after feedback from multiple teams across the league, including champions from the first season, Virtus.Pro. That team was required to stay in Atlanta for almost the entire month of July to compete in the last-chance qualifier, the playoffs and then the semifinals and finals. ' ' '