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Halifax Mooseheads goaltender Zachary Fucale turns away a shot with the help of defenseman Austyn Hardie as Portland Winterhawks center Brendan Leipsic presses sduring the first period of a junior hockey Memorial Cup game Saturday, May 18, 2013, in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Liam Richards) Jazz singer Alexis Normand garnered a penalty before a Saturday hockey game in Canada after slashing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” SI.com reports. Normand delivered an unforgettable version of America’s national anthem during a Memorial Cup round-robin game between the Halifax Mooseheads and the Portland Winterhawks in Saskatoon. According to SI.com, Normand made it through...

The family of the late Derek Boogaard has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the NHL. The former enforcer for the Minnesota Wild and New York Rangers died in May 2011 from a lethal mix of alcohol and oxycodone. He had become addicted to painkillers while dealing with concussions and other injury issues during his six-year NHL career. From the New York Times: "To distill this to one sentence," said William Gibbs, a lawyer for the Boogaards, "you take a young man, you subject him to trauma, you give him pills for that trauma, he becomes addicted to those pills,...

NEW YORK -- The National Hockey League today announced the dates, times and national broadcast information for the 2013 Stanley Cup Conference Quarterfinal round, which begins Tuesday, April 30th. Information on the U.S. broadcast networks for games later in the round will be released as it is determined.

The Detroit Red Wings honored Gordie Howe on his 85th birthday Sunday as players wore jerseys with Howe's retired No. 9 during warm-ups and "Mr. Hockey" was on hand at Joe Louis Arena signing autographs. [...] Former Red Wings defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom, who won seven Norris Trophies, was in from Sweden for the occasion. Also on hand were Red Wings Hall of Famers Ted Lindsay and Alex Delvecchio...

They walked into a Manhattan hotel, knowing they were running out of time to save their season. After 16 hours of tense talks, the NHL and its players finally achieved their elusive deal early Sunday morning, finding a way to restart a sport desperate to regain momentum and boost its prominence. Ending a bitter dispute that wiped out a large part of the hockey season for the third time in less than two decades, the league and its union agreed to the framework of a 10-year labor contract that will allow a delayed schedule to start later this month.

The National Hockey League and the National Hockey League Players' Association reached agreement on the framework of a new Collective Bargaining Agreement early Sunday morning. After a marathon 16-plus hour negotiating session at the Sofitel Hotel that began Saturday afternoon, the sides announced an agreement in principle shortly after 6 a.m. Sunday. The League did not announce the start date of the season or the number of games each team will play. Those details will be announced soon. The deal, agreed to at approximately 4:40 a.m., was announced jointly by NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and NHLPA Executive Director Donald Fehr...

It took 16 hours of talks in New York on Saturday, with concessions from both sides. It took 113 days. A total of 625 regular-season games were sacrificed, or over half the 2012-13 season. It took months of bitter sniping, petty politics, false hope and broken hearts.

Greg Jamison says he hopes to close the purchase of the Phoenix Coyotes in January, and while the usual doubters point out this is simply the latest in a long line of such predictions, they are giving him full marks for creativity in his hunt for investors. This is due to Jamison’s novel but failed attempt to find investors through the Immigrant Investor Program of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Two sources familiar with his investment plans said Jamison, the former president of the NHL’s San Jose Sharks, tried to raise at least some of the $170-million (all currency...

The NHL could be one step away from canceling another hockey season because of a labor fight with the players. In the latest round of cancellations, the NHL on Thursday wiped out all games through Jan. 14. More than 50 percent of the schedule has been lost, and the rest is now in great danger, too. “I don’t want to characterize what today’s cancellations mean or don't mean,” NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly told The Associated Press in an email. “I will stand on the announcement that was made.” So far, 625 regular-season games have been called off, including nearly...

Through New Year's Eve, your friends at Puck Daddy fondly recall the Year in Hockey for 2012, such as it wasn't. The NHL All-Star Game's Breakaway Challenge competition has become the League's home for prop comedy, and Chicago Blackhawks star Patrick Kane didn't disappoint. With Eminem's "Superman" playing over the ScotiaBank Place speakers, Kane put on a cape and Clark Kent glasses (in complete violation of the character's rules, mind you) during one of his shootout attempts — a concept he came up with 24 hours before the event in Ottawa. Yet when it comes to the Top 10 most...

For many Canadians, the prospect of a lost–or even delayed–National Hockey League season is heartbreak enough. Now it turns out, it also might high-stick the country’s economy. Associated Press Montreal Canadiens’ Colby Armstrong, left, and Ryan White take a break during an informal training session last month at the team’s training facility in Brossard, Quebec.From his desk at one of Canada’s big banks, economist and hockey fan Doug Porter has been crunching numbers, as labor strife between players and owners threatens to scupper the NHL season. Mr. Porter, deputy chief economist at BMO Capital Markets, figures a canceled season would...

EDMONTON—With a deadline looming to complete a deal to build the Edmonton Oilers a new arena, the team’s brass turned up the heat on city councillors by paying a visit to Seattle. Oilers owner Daryl Katz, team president Patrick LaForge and president of hockey operations Kevin Lowe were in Seattle on Monday for meetings about a possible relocation to the city, the Oilers said in a statement. “The Katz Group has been listening to proposals from a number of potential NHL markets for some time,” the statement read. “After more than four years of trying to secure an arena deal...

NEW YORK – The clock struck midnight, and the NHL turned into another sports league closed for business. Unable to reach agreement on a new labor deal, the National Hockey League locked out its players at 12:01 a.m. Sunday, the third major pro sport to impose a work stoppage in the last 18 months, behind the NFL and NBA. The action also marks the fourth shutdown for the NHL since 1992, including a year-long dispute that forced the cancellation of the entire 2004-05 season when the league successfully held out for a salary cap. That fight ended with the latest...

Members of three Canadian-based teams are attempting to use provincial law to contest the legality of a potential lockout by the National Hockey League owners. The National Hockey League Players' Association believes that laws in the provinces of both Alberta and Quebec would make the potential lockout unlawful. "The filings are intended to interfere with the broader labor negotiating process," NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said Monday. "They will have absolutely zero impact on the broader negotiation, or on the deal we ultimately agree on." According to the NHLPA, the fact that the Union is not recognized by the Quebec...

There is no guarantee the Minnesota Wild's decision to give matching 13-year, $98 million deals to Zach Parise and Ryan Suter is going to work out. Free agent deals of this magnitude have failed before, setting franchises back and backfiring in ways that no could have expected on the day they were signed. But on Wednesday, as the Wild announced they had secured the services of the two biggest free agents on the market, there was no time for this type of cynicism in the Twin Cities sports community.

Captain Dustin Brown has a goal and two assists to lead the 45-year-old franchise to its first NHL championship. Jeff Carter and Trevor Lewis each score twice.

2012 Stanley Cup Finals Schedule Game 1 at New Jersey—Wednesday, May 30 at 8 p.m. EDT—NBC TV. Game 2 at New Jersey—Saturday, June 2 at 8 p.m. EDT—NBC TV. Game 3 at Los Angeles—Monday, June 4 at 8 p.m. EDT—NBC Sports Network. Game 4 at Los Angeles—Wednesday, June 6 at 8 p.m. EDT—NBC Sports Network. Game 5 at New Jersey (if necessary)—Saturday, June 9 at 8 p.m. EDT—NBC TV. Game 6 at Los Angeles (if necessary)—Monday, June 11 at 8 p.m. EDT—NBC TV. Game 7 at New Jersey (if necessary)—Wednesday, June 13 at 8 p.m. EDT—NBC TV.

The CBC is planning some counter-programming for female non-hockey fans who might be forced to tune into the Stanley Cup final next week. Viewers can go online to listen to an alternate commentary from Lena Sutherland and Jules Mancuso, who run WhileTheMenWatch.com. They describe their site as a sports talk show for women, “Sex and the City” meets ESPN, with banter “from a woman’s point of view.” “One afternoon while (our husbands) were both watching the same game on TV Jules and I were on the phone and we started just making comments to each other like, ‘Did you see...

The Montreal Canadiens have tabbed former NHL player Marc Bergevin as its new GM and will introduce him in a Wednesday afternoon press conference at the team's practice facility. Bergevin, 46, will replace the fired Pierre Gauthier, who was let go near the end of the 2011-12 season, and become the 17th GM in Canadiens history. The Canadiens not only missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs this season, but finished last in the Eastern Conference and No. 28 in the League with a 31-35-16 record. A Montreal native, Bergevin has spent the past seven seasons in Chicago's front office. This past...

NASHVILLE -- The Nashville Predators announced on Tuesday morning that they will hold top-six forwards Andrei Kostitsyn and Alexander Radulov out of Game 3 of their Western Conference Semifinal series with the Phoenix Coyotes on Wednesday (9 p.m. ET, CNBC, TSN) for an unspecified violation of team rules. "The Nashville Predators have a few simple rules centered around doing the right things," general manager David Poile said in a statement. "We have always operated with a team-first mentality and philosophy. Violating team rules is not fair to our team and their teammates." Poile expanded upon that statement in a brief...