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The Detroit Red Wings equaled an NHL record with their 20th straight win at home, beating the Philadelphia Flyers 4-3 Sunday night on the strength of Johan Franzen's tiebreaking goal early in the third period.
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The United States completed a 5-0 rout of Switzerland in the Davis Cup on Sunday, with 19-year-old Ryan Harrison and John Isner winning closing singles matches.
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Tessa Worley of France fought off gusting winds to win a second consecutive World Cup giant slalom Sunday in the Andorran Pyrenees. Overall leader Lindsey Vonn was more than a second behind and finished eighth.
Robins: It’s the Year of the Dragon on the Lunar calendar, and this Chinese influence could extend to it also being the year of the Pekingese on the green carpet at the 136th Westminster Dog Show on Tuesday.
NEW YORK - NBC is back on ice after 29 years.
The network will broadcast NHL games the next two seasons under a revenue-sharing deal, replacing ABC as the league’s broadcast partner.
The deal, announced Wednesday, will call for NBC to broadcast seven regular-season games beginning in January and six playoff games in regular Saturday afternoon time slots. The network also will televise Games 3-7 of the Stanley Cup finals in prime time. NBC last regularly broadcast NHL games 29 years ago. The network televised the league’s All-Star game from 1991-94.
(NBC is a partner in the joint venture that runs NBCSports.com.)
“This is the right deal at the right time with the right parties,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said.
The two-year agreement, in which the league and the network share advertising revenue and NBC pays no rights fee, may be renewed for an additional two years at NBC’s option. The deal is subject to approval by the league’s board.
“We think that this structure makes enormous sense for both sides of the deal,” said Ken Schanzer, president of NBC Sports.
The NHL is bracing for an offseason that will feature labor talks to head off a potential lockout that could disrupt next season after the collective bargaining agreement expires Sept. 15.
Bettman hopes that NBC’s strong prime-time lineup Thursday and Friday and its presence with viewers in the 18-49 demographic will draw a larger audience to the Saturday afternoon games. The network plans to do most of the advertising for the games during prime-time shows Thursday and Friday.
“It was very important to us, obviously, that we had good, important stable relationships going forward on television,” Bettman said. “NBC is renowned for innovative programming and unique promotion of its sports properties. From the days of our Game of the Week in the ‘70s and onward, through our relationship at the Olympics, NBC has demonstrated an understanding of hockey and the commitment to the promotion of the game and its stars. We’re delighted to be in a partnership with NBC.”
For NBC, the deal represents a move back into televising major professional team sports. In recent years, the network has focused on events like the Olympics, NASCAR, Triple Crown horse racing and Notre Dame football while competitors had the NFL, NHL, NBA and major league baseball.
"It's a big win for NBC, which puts the network back on the map as far as the major sports," media analyst Sean Badding told Bloomberg on Tuesday. "The NHL isn't the top ticket, but it's up there after football, baseball and basketball."
The deal gives NBC its first major sports league presence since allowing its deals to expire with the NFL (1998), Major League Baseball (2000) and NBA (2002) over the past six years.
The network has long said that it would not pay expensive rights fees for the cachet of carrying major sports that could eventually lose money.
“It’s just good sound business to be going down the course of business we’re going down,” NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol said.
Still, the network is not a neophyte when it comes to hockey. The NHL’s first broadcast deal, to air Stanley Cup playoff games, was with NBC in 1966. NBC’s NHL heritage also includes the “Peter Puck” era from 1972-73 through 1974-75.
NBC also has a revenue-sharing deal with the Arena Football League, renewed Tuesday for two more years, in which the network paid no rights fee.
The NHL also renewed its broadcast deal with ESPN for one season, with ESPN holding options for the 2005-06 and 2006-07 seasons. ESPN will again broadcast the first two games of the Stanley Cup finals and adds the All-Star game to its schedule.
ESPN2 will televise 40 regular-season games, on a consistent Sunday and Wednesday schedule.
An industry source familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press the first year of the ESPN deal would be worth $60 million, with the next two years being worth $70 million each.
The figures are lower than the current deal with ESPN, which includes ABC. That deal was for five years for $600 million.
The Detroit Red Wings equaled an NHL record with their 20th straight win at home, beating the Philadelphia Flyers 4-3 Sunday night on the strength of Johan Franzen's tiebreaking goal early in the third period.
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Zambia has won the African Cup of Nations, beating pre-tournament favorite Ivory Coast 8-7 on penalties in a dramatic final at Stade de l'Amitie.
The Red Wings have finally started to embrace a record they've been chasing.
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