Sidney Crosby made his first National Hockey League visit to Western Canada a triumphant one on Wednesday, helping Pittsburgh beat Edmonton 4-2 in the city where Wayne Gretzky became a legend.
Crosby, the heir apparent to Gretzky as the NHL's breakout superstar, assisted on three of the Penguins' four goals in the final period.
When the NHL returned after a labor fight wiped out the entire 2004-2005 season, the schedule kept teams from opposite ends of North America from going to every city more than once every three years.
PHOTO: AP
As a result, "Sid the Kid" played 186 regular-season games without visiting the three Western Canada clubs. The 20-year-old prodigy was due to play at Calgary yesterday and Vancouver tomorrow.
Edmonton led 2-0 but goals by Maxime Talbot, Kris Letang, Colby Armstrong and Ryan Whitney lifted the Penguins to victory for the fifth time in six games.
In other NHL action on Wednesday it was:
* Columbus 5, Colorado 4
* Atlanta 4, NY Islanders 3 (SO)
* New Jersey 4, Boston 3 (OT)
* Ottawa 5, Florida 4
* Philadelphia 3, Minnesota 1
* Vancover 3, Chicago 2
* San Jose 3, Dallas 2
* Phoenix 4, Los Angeles 1
* Anaheim 4, Buffalo 1
New Taipei Kings guard Jeremy Lin on Friday was named the Taiwan Professional Basketball League’s (TPBL) Player of the Month, the first domestic player to win the award, while the Hsinchu Toplus Lioneers are to welcome their third head coach in less than a year. Lin averaged 22 points, 5.4 rebounds and 6.6 assists over five games in October and last month, helping the Kings to second in the standings with a 4-2 record as of Friday. The Kings last night defeated the Lioneers 96-78 to move level with the top-of-the-table Formosa Dreamers (5-2), while in the night game, the New Taipei
TO NO AVAIL: The Denver Nuggets’ Serbian center Nikola Jokic surpassed his 53-point performance in the 2023 Western Conference semi-finals against Phoenix The Washington Wizards withstood a 56-point explosion from Denver star Nikola Jokic to beat the Nuggets 122-113 on Saturday and snap their 16-game NBA losing streak. Jokic, who won his third NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) award last season, posted a career scoring high — surpassing a 53-point performance in game four of the 2023 Western Conference semi-finals against Phoenix and a 50-point regular-season best against Sacramento in 2021. The Serbian big man added 16 rebounds and eight assists, but it was all to no avail as Washington, buoyed by 39 points from Jordan Poole, won for the first time
Taiwan on Wednesday finished with 15 medals at the World Taekwondo Poomsae Championships in Hong Kong, taking home four gold, five silver and six bronze medals across the age group divisions. Taiwan ranked third on the medal table after South Korea with 17 golds and the US with eight golds at the five-day competition. “Your athletes have proven themselves as the best in the world,” World Taekwondo president Choue Chung-won said at the closing ceremony of the martial art contest that was attended by a record 1,727 athletes from around the world. On the first day of the competition at the Hong Kong
Taiwan’s Lin Cheng-jing won a bronze medal in the clean and jerk in the women’s under-49 kg division at the 2024 IWF World Weightlifting Championships in Bahrain on Saturday. Lin won her first medal at a World Weightlifting Championships for lifting 107kg in the clean and jerk in her weight class, 2kg more than Rosegie Ramos of the Philippines. However, Ramos won bronze for the combined lift after topping Lin by 5kg in the snatch. Ri Song-gum of North Korea won gold in the division’s combined lift with a total of 213kg, while Xiang Linxiang of China took silver with