The Week In Tv Sports

Highlights

SATURDAY 4/8

?Flamingo Stakes/ Santa Anita Derby
ESPN2 (Flamingo); Fox (Santa Anita) 5 PM
They're running neck and neck, this bicoastal pair of 1?-mile races that air simultaneously. On the inside rail is the $1 million Santa Anita, your better viewing bet, where the entries as of Monday included War Chant, last year's two-year-old Eclipse Award winner, and Anees, the Breeders' Cup Juvenile champion.

? NCAA Hockey Championship
ESPN 7:30 PM
The Frozen Four—Boston College, Maine , North Dakota and St. Lawrence—will have been Zamboni 'd down to two on April 6. St. Lawrence survived an NCAA -record four-overtime quarterfinal against Boston University but will have had to overcome the Eagles' trio of Hobey Baker Award finalists, forwards Jeff Farkas and Brian Gionta , and defenseman Mike Mottau, to make it into tonight's final at the Providence Civic Center. Maine , the East's top seed, faced off against North Dakota without Black Bears top scorer Cory Larose, suspended for one game after butt-ending a foe during the regionals.

SUNDAY 4/9
?Eco-Challenge
Discovery 9 PM
The world's toughest expedition race, taped last December, uses the awesome beauty of Patagonia as its stage in the highlights shown tonight and continuing on Monday (9 p.m.). We don't want to spoil your fun, but here's one possible scenario: Things go awry early for Team Burkittsville, when Mike confesses to Heather and Josh that he kicked the map into the river; Team Deliverance, after a brief, mysterious detour on shore that members "would prefer nobody know about," exploits its canoeing acumen; in the end Team Warriors, a scruffy gang from Brooklyn , overcomes the subway system and the Baseball Furies to claim victory.

THURSDAY 4/13
?Rangers at Yankees
Fox Sports 7 PM
In comes Texas , then income taxes, inspiring the following EZ form:

Juan Gonzalez is gone, gone-zalez,
In Texas the slugger shan't play,
But our Se�or Juan is no Elian,
A Gonzalez who's news every day,
On a slow boat from Cuba—without gear for scuba,
The boy nearly died, to be frank
If he outgrows the sitter,
And masters the splitter,
He'll be the next refugee Yank.

Don't Miss

SATURDAY 4/8
?The Masters
CBS 3:30 PM; Sunday 4 PM
Augusta National , like venues for the other golf majors, shows scant hospitality to southpaws. A lefty has never made it to the Masters champions' dinner, and Bob Charles (1963 British Open) is the only portside winner of a major. The closest anyone using left-handed clubs has come to donning the green jacket was in 1996, when Left Coast native Phil Mickelson (above) finished third, six strokes behind winner Nick Faldo . Will this be the right year for the lefty? So far in 2000, Mickelson has won the Buick Invitational and the BellSouth Classic—and has hit a shot right-handed, using a southpaw club, from the rough at the Bay Hill Invitational.

ALL TIMES EASTERN. SCHEDULES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE.