DULY NOTED

Saturday, May 27, 2006 | 7:40 a.m.

$TADIUM $TUDIES

During its viability study for putting a pro football franchise back in Los Angeles, NFL owners have learned that a new stadium could cost as much as $800 million.

I just hope the task force that is studying whether Las Vegas should build a new stadium and/or arena to lure major league sports to town is reading.

The price of a new stadium is so exorbitant that even the Fortune 500 types who own NFL teams are leery of spending the money.

"It is daunting, very daunting," Denver Broncos owner Pat Bowlen told the Rocky Mountain News during NFL meetings this week. "And this is certainly a consideration right now.

"There'll be somebody who wants to go there, but we're at a point where you have to look at how much it's going to (cost) to do it."

Hopefully, our local task force will get to that point, too. Then perhaps it will decide that paving the parking lot at Sam Boyd Stadium is a more realistic option.

SHOULDERS A LOAD FOR SCHWIKERTS

Tasha and Jordan Schwikert, the former world-class gymnasts from Las Vegas, are so attuned to each other that they even get injured at the same time. On the same area of their bodies.

The sisters, sophomores at UCLA, literally had a lame season thanks to off-season shoulder injuries.

Tasha Schwikert's bid to defend the NCAA all-around title she won as a freshman ended before it even began when she had rotator cuff surgery in December. She returned late in the season and qualified for the NCAA championships in the vault after earning All-America status in all four all-around disciplines during her freshman season.

Jordan Schwikert had a similar procedure performed in November, but did not return to competition after making second-team All-America on the balance beam as a freshman when UCLA won the NCAA title.

Both are expected to make full recoveries and, um, shoulder the load for next year's Bruin team.

THE BIG SKY'S NOT THE LIMIT

Contrary to its Downey football and basketball schedules, not everybody at UNLV is afraid of a little competition.

With five teams that played in the 2005 NCAA tournament and four Pac-10 members on its 2006 schedule, the UNLV women's soccer team is playing the toughest schedule this side of Group E (USA, Italy, Czech Republic, Ghana) at the World Cup.

"It should be a measurement for where we are and what we'll need to do to defend our conference title," Rebels coach Kat Mertz said.

Unlike football and basketball, the women's soccer team is not playing any Big Sky schools. Or home games in St. George, Utah.

GOING ... GOING ... GAGNE

Last week, when interviewing Eric Langill for a piece on the 51s' two French-speaking catchers, I joked that unless the club signed Henri Richard as a bullpen coach, he wouldn't have anybody with whom to talk Canadiens hockey, now that Russell Martin has made himself at home behind home plate in Los Angeles.

But that was before Dodgers relief ace Eric Gagne agreed to a major league rehab assignment that began in Las Vegas on Friday night .

Langill said he was going to call Gagne, another Quebec native, to arrange for Celine Dion tickets. Now he can do it in person.

"He's so big that when he walks down the street, he puts hockey players to shame," Langill said of Gagne's fame in Montreal.

$61

The court costs that NASCAR driver Kyle Busch of Las Vegas was required to pay as part of pleading guilty to improper driving in Richmond, Va.

$100.80

The cost of a "cheap" seat to watch Busch race in the NASCAR Nextel Cup race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in March

17.6

Average runs allowed by Air Force over its past five Mountain West Conference baseball tournament games

NASCAR driver Jeff Burton

on Las Vegan and fellow driver Kurt Busch's $1 million donation to Kyle Petty's Victory Junction Gang camp

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