In selecting the top 10 sports stories of the year, we were faced with quite a dilemma. It was easy to separate local sports from national sports, but what to do with Charlotte sports? What about the ACC? It?s hard to classify North Carolina basketball or Panthers football as local sports, yet it?s not quite national, either.

So we chickened out and came up with the "Top 10 Regional" sports stories of the year.

Without further ado:

Will they stay or go?

1 The top regional sports story is no singular event; in fact, nothing much has even happened. But the question of whether the Hornets will stay in Charlotte or leave town for another venue has dominated area sports talk for the better part of a year.

When Charlotte voters rejected a June referendum which would have paved the way for public financing of a new Uptown arena, Hornets owners George Shinn and Ray Wooldridge began an exhaustive search for a city which would give them what they want: A new arena at no cost to themselves.

So far, that search has been met with skepticism by most cities contacted. The Hornets applied for relocation to Memphis, but were beaten out by the Vancouver Grizzlies. The cities of Louisville, Hampton Roads, Va., Oklahoma City, Anaheim, Calif. and St. Louis have all been contacted, yet no firm offer has been made.

Shinn and Wooldridge have placed a Jan. 1 deadline on relocation talk, but not much figures to get done before then. Meanwhile, attendance at Hornets games, once among the best in the league, has now dwindled to less than 10,000 per game despite having the most successful playoff team in franchise history.

Both Shinn and Wooldridge have said they are not willing to sell the team, even though local ownership groups have expressed interest.

Probably the worst news of all is that fans who are simply tired of hearing about the issue will get no rest: There seems to be no end in sight.