NHL down to final week
The NHL and its Players’ Association have one week left to avoid a lockout.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and depute commissioner Bil Daly had two informal meetings with NHLPA head Don Fehr, his top assistant, Steve Fehr, and a contingent of three players at the league office Friday in New York.
The parties are expected to decide today when to meet again; actually doing it today apparently is a possibility.
Talks, which were the first face-to-face interactions since negotiations were recessed a week earlier, were intended to be informational, allowing each party to become more familiar with the other’s most recent proposal. Bettman has said repeatedly that the players will be locked out if a new collective bargaining agreement is not in place when the current one expires Sept. 15.
More hockey
Against the backdrop of an NHL lockout, the Boston Bruins agreed to a new, fouryear deal with forward Brad Marchand. Feisty Marchand, 24, a key cog in the run to the 2011 Stanley Cup, will make $4.5 million per season, starting in 2013-14. He is scheduled to make $3 million in the coming season, the last of his twoyear contract.
College basketball
A starter on Duke’s 2010 national championship team purchased nearly $100,000 in custom jewelry that season from a New York firm that caters to professional athletes and is now suing him for failing to pay the balance of what he owes. Lance Thomas purchased five pieces of diamond jewelry at a cost of $97,800 Dec. 21, 2009, in the middle of his senior season, according the lawsuit. Documents included with the suit indicate he made a $30,000 down payment and received $67,800 in credit from the firm, the balance that remains unpaid.
• Iowa State’s Bubu Palo and another man were arrested after being accused of sexually abusing a woman he
was driving home earlier this year. Coach Fred Hoiberg said Palo, 21, a reserve point guard, was suspended indefinitely.
Pro basketball
Taj McWilliams-Franklin made a 15-footer and two key defensive plays in the final minute of the second overtime Friday night as the host Minnesota Lynx (23-4) rallied from a 25-point deficit and defeated the Atlanta Dream (15-14), 97-93, in a rematch of last year’s WNBA Finals. Maya Moore scored 23 points to lead the Lynx. Angel McCoughtry scored 30 points for the Dream. … Tamika Catchings had 26 points and 11 rebounds to lead the visiting Indiana Fever (18-9) to an 82-78 victory against San Antonio Silver Stars (17-10). Becky Hammon had 15 points for the Silver Stars. … Epiphanny Prince scored 30 points to lead the visiting Chicago Sky (1116) to a 92-83 win against the New York Liberty (11-17). Swin Cash had 10 points and seven rebounds for the Sky. … DeWanna Bonner had 35 points and seven rebounds to lead the visiting Phoenix Mercury (7-20) to a 91-82 victory against the Eastern Conference-leading Connecticut Sun (20-8). Renee Montgomery had 25 points for Connecticut (20-8). … Candace Parker and Kristi Toliver scored 18 points each as the Los Angeles Sparks (20-9) snapped a three-game skid with a 96-68 victory against the host Washington Mystics (5-23). Monique Curry scored 16 points for the Mystics, who lost their seasonhigh seventh in a row.
Track and field
Olympic champion Aries Merritt of the United States set a world record of 12.80 seconds in the 110-meter hurdles, upstaging Usain Bolt’s routine 100-meter victory in the final Diamond League meet of the season in Brussels.
At the Van Damme Memorial, Merritt shot out of the blocks, didn’t touch any of the hurdles to slice 0.07 seconds off the old mark set by Cuba’s Dayron Robles four years ago.