TEMPE, Ariz. -- Bruce Arians was back at work Wednesday, saying he has been given an absolute clean bill of health but otherwise declining to talk about this weeks brief hospital stay.Im full go brother, the Arizona Cardinals coach said after practice. Im fine.Arians said whatever happened that led to his hospitalization is between me and my wife.And doctors didnt tell Arians to dial down his emotions, which run quite high on the sideline.No, Arians said. The worst thing you can do is hold your emotions inside.Besides, he said, he couldnt tone down his style if he wanted to.The Cardinals said Monday that Arians felt some discomfort after his return from Minneapolis on Sunday, leading his wife to take him to the hospital.After a series of tests, he was released late Monday and was back at his desk on Tuesday.Quarterback Carson Palmer said Arians looked great. ... Everything is back to normal.And Palmer said he had no concerns about Arians long-term health.Hes as tough as they come, Palmer said. Hes as tough as any player in that locker room, and whatever happened, happened, and (he) got it checked out. He looks great, as you can see. Its business as usual for him and for us.The Cardinals activated safety Tyvon Branch from the injured list. Branch can practice this week, but cant play in a game until the Dec. 4 game against Washington.Branch was chosen over running back Chris Johnson.It was the hardest decision, Arians said. I put it off as long as I could to make sure that we could do the right thing for the team.A team can remove only one player from injured reserve each season.Branch got the nod because he can play on special teams, an area that the Cardinals have been woefully inadequate most of the season. Arians said five of the Cardinals core special teams players are injured.Arians was his usual blunt self, taking aim at one point at first-round draft pick Robert Nkemdiche.The big defensive lineman has been inactive in six of the 10 games, although two earlier in the season were because of injuries. He was a healthy scratch the past two weeks.Arians was asked what was keeping Nkemdiche off the field.Talent -- not an issue, Arians said. Maturity is. Its just maturing.Last years first-round pick, D.J. Humphries, was inactive all of last season, but now is the starting right tackle.Arians was asked if Nkemdiches situation was similar.No, Arians said. D.J. worked harder.The coach also had some thoughts on critics who blame Palmer for the teams 4-5-1 record.Well, theyre wrong on that one, Arians said. Carson, he put a lot of trust in some guys that havent come through for him.The coach didnt elaborate, although he did have some criticism for any wide receiver not named Larry Fitzgerald.Arians called the wide receiver play, other than Fitzgeralds, very average.It is not something the coach expected.We thought that would be one of the strengths of our offense, Arians said.The coach said safety Tyrann Mathieu would play Sunday at Atlanta after missing the past two games with a shoulder injury.Mathieu wasnt quite that optimistic.I think Im ready to go, he said, but well see how the week goes. If I continue to progress well and everythings OK, Ill be out there Sunday.---For more NFL coverage: http://www.pro32.ap.org and http://www.twitter.com/AP-NFLDwight Gooden Jersey . After Gasquet beat fifth-seeded Ivan Dodig of Croatia 7-5, 6-3, Tsonga followed up with a 6-7 (3), 6-2, 6-2 win against sixth-seeded Edouard Roger-Vasselin in an all-French match. Mike Piazza Jersey . -- Al Jefferson found a groove just in time for the Charlotte Bobcats. http://www.metssale.com/mets-michael-conforto-jersey/ . Fellow centre Pavel Datsyuk remains out because of a concussion. Zetterberg has 11 goals and 19 assists for a team-high 30 points, and Datsyuk has a team-high 12 goals and 11 assists. Yoenis Cespedes Mets Jersey . The phone hearing is scheduled for 4:30pm et/1:30pm pt. Winchester, who was not penalized for the hit, appeared to make contact with Kellys head early in the first period of Thursdays game in Boston. Carlos Gomez Mets Jersey .com) - The Chicago Blackhawks aim for their third three-game winning streak of the season when they host the struggling Edmonton Oilers in Sundays battle at the United Center. TORONTO -- The things that make hockey beautiful are the same things that limit its popular appeal. Its almost too exotic for its own good. It requires ice, and not a little bit: great big sheets of it, clean and flawless. The ice means that hockey also requires skating. Like mastering a language, learning to skate rewards early adoption. Most of us can run, so we can come to understand and even play a lot of sports that we didnt grow up playing. We have already met their first demand. Hockey has a higher barrier to entry. If you cant skate, you cant play.I cant skate. Im Canadian, but my family is an immigrant family, and I was too late to the pond. A Canadian who cant skate is like an American who cant light a firework. Youre surrounded by people taking delight in something that has escaped you, everybody laughing at a joke thats gone over your head. Theres a fountain in front of Torontos iconic City Hall. In the winter it becomes a rink, of course, and I cant tell you how many times Ive watched people circling that square with a grace and speed that fills me with envy.World Cup of Hockey schedule: Watch on ESPN, ESPN2, WatchESPNBut I still love hockey, and I can identify the moment I fell for it and why. When I was very young, maybe 5 or 6, my dad took me to my first hockey game. We watched the Toronto Maple Leafs at Maple Leaf Gardens. We didnt have a lot of money, and its the only game we ever attended together. I can remember walking to that fabled arena, holding my dads hand so I wouldnt get lost in the bustle of the building crowd. I can remember being almost blinded by the glare off the ice. I can remember watching the first period and maybe part of the second, trying to take in all of hockeys crazy action, to parse its peculiar brand of collision physics.And then I can remember leaning into my dad and falling fast asleep.In Canada, hockey occupies the same place in our collective consciousness that baseball does in America, only it has inspired more riots. The rink, the heart of so many of our small communities, is our version of the ballpark as cathedral. The back of our $5 bill used to have an engraving of kids playing shinny on it. The prime minister prior to our current dreamboat was a hockey historian. Arguably the most famous song by The Tragically Hip, our unofficial national band, is about a hockey player who was killed in a plane crash. Most Canadians can tell you that the last goal Bill Barilko ever scored won the Leafs the Cupp.ddddddddddddIf you havent watched a lot of hockey, that romance and poetry will probably be lost on you. Thats understandable. On the surface, its a brutal game, bloody and ferocious, with its welts and bruises and lost teeth. It moves at a frenetic pace, too, the tiny puck sometimes lost in the blur, the shifts only a minute long, the changes in momentum almost too quick to appreciate. Baseball is complicated but slow enough to digest. Hockey is simple but too fast to see.I think everything changed that night at the Gardens when I fell asleep. Thats when hockey started making sense to me, when I didnt try so hard to watch it and instead let it filter through my dreams. The sound of the game stuck in my brain like a song that makes you smile every time you hear it.The distinctive sound that hockey makes is one of its happier accidents, the twin benefit of constructing a game exclusively out of hard surfaces and playing it during the quietest time of year, when the birds are gone and no leaves are rustling in the trees. Ice instead of grass, boards instead of chalk, skates instead of shoes, sticks instead of hands, pucks instead of balls -- each of its base elements makes a noise when it comes in contact with any of its others, all of them frozen solid. The hiss of a blade carving into a wet rink or the bang of a puck shot wide are unmistakable, as distinctive as fingerprints.Hockey might be the only sport that you can follow nearly as well in the dark, which is handy when the winter sun sets well before dinner. Other sports have their telltale noises -- baseballs crack of the bat, basketballs infernal squeaking of sneakers -- but hockeys sounds combine to make a symphony that tells so much more of its story. In other sports, the best plays are often lauded for their relative quiet: the swish of the perfect basket, the soundless connection between a quarterbacks spiral and the soft hands of his receiver. Hockey might never be still, but it is also never silent.I didnt wake up that long-ago night in Toronto until my dad carried me outside the Gardens and the cold hit my face. I can remember looking up at him and feeling confused and lost, except that I was in his arms. That was good enough for me. I closed my eyes again, and for the second time in the same night, I didnt need to see to know everything I needed to know. ' ' '