Today in Sports - Week Ahead, Feb. 14 - Feb. 20
Feb. 14
1934 — The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the NHL All-Stars 7-3. The game is played as a benefit for fomer Toronto player Ace Bailey. Bailey suffers a skull fracture earlier in the season from a hit by Boston’s Eddie Shore.
1936 — Maribel Vinson wins her eighth U.S. figure skating singles championship and Robin Lee wins his second consecutive men’s title.
1951 — Sugar Ray Robinson wins the middleweight title with a technical knockout in the 13th round over Jake LaMotta in Chicago.
1953 — Bill Chambers of William & Mary grabs 51 rebounds in a 105-84 victory over Virginia.
1966 — Philadelphia’s Wilt Chamberlain scores 41 points in a 149-123 win over Detroit to become the NBA’s all-time scoring leader, passing Bob Pettit (20,880 points).
1975 — Julius Erving of the New York Nets scores 63 points in a 176-166 quadruple overtime loss to the San Diego Conquistadors. Erving sets an ABA record by shooting 25-for-46 from the field and the 342 points are an ABA record.
1986 — Wayne Gretzky gets seven assists for the third time in his career as the Edmonton Oilers beat the Quebec Nordiques 8-2. Gretzky doesn’t score a goal for a career-high ninth straight game, but ties his NHL record with the seven assists.
1988 — Bobby Allison outduels his 26-year-old son Davey to win the Daytona 500 and becomes the first 50-year-old to win NASCAR’s premier event.
1990 — Mario Lemieux of the Pittsburgh Penguins ends his 46-game scoring streak, the second-longest in NHL history, leaving after two scoreless periods of a 4-3 overtime victory over the New York Rangers.
1992 — Bonnie Blair becomes the first American woman in 40 years to win two gold medals in the Winter Olympics when she takes the 1,000-meter speed skating event.
2004 — Anaheim’s Sergei Fedorov is the first Russian-born player to collect 1,000 points with an assist on Keith Carney’s goal in the second period of the Ducks’ 2-1 win over Vancouver.
2005 — Savannah State is 0-for-the-season, becoming the second NCAA Division I school in a half-century to go through an entire season without a win, losing to Florida A&M 49-44 to finish 0-28.
2010 — In Vancouver, British Columbia, an American breaks through the Nordic combined barrier, winning the first Olympic medal in the sport dominated by Europeans. Jason Lamy Chappuis of France overtakes American Johnny Spillane on the final straightaway for the gold medal, winning four-tenths of a second ahead of Spillane.
2010 — The Eastern Conference edges the West 141-139 in the NBA All-Star game before the largest crowd ever to watch a basketball game. A crowd of 108,713 at Cowboys Stadium watches Dwyane Wade score 28 points and take MVP honors before Dallas native Chris Bosh makes the winning free throws with 5.0 seconds left.
2010 — Sailing’s America’s Cup, once again, belongs to America after Larry Ellison’s space-age trimaran easily speeds ahead of two-time defending champion Alinghi of Switzerland to complete a two-race sweep in the 33rd America’s Cup.
2015 — Mikaela Shiffrin becomes the third woman to win back-to-back slalom titles at world championships. She finishes in a combined time of 1:38.48, edging Frida Hansdotter of Sweden by 0.34 seconds.
2016 — The first NBA All-Star Game outside the U.S. is the highest-scoring ever. Kobe Bryant says his NBA All-Star Game goodbye as the West wins 196-173 at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto. Russell Westbrook scores 31 points in his second straight All-Star MVP performance. Paul George finishes with 41 for the East.
2018 — Snowboarder Shaun White wins America’s 100th Winter Olympic gold medal, throwing down a spectacular final run in the men’s halfpipe at the Pyeongchang Games. The United States is the second country to win 100 winter golds, trailing Norway, which started the day with 121.
2021 - 63rd Daytona 500: Michael McDowell navigates through fiery, final-lap pileup to claim his first career NASCAR Cup Series win in his 14th season; race delayed by rain for 6 hours after huge Lap 14 crash.
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Feb. 15
1932 — Eddie Eagen, as a member of the four-man U.S. bobsled team, wins a gold medal at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. He previously won a gold medal in boxing light heavyweight division at the 1920 Summer Games in Antwerp, Belgium.
1936 — Sonja Henie of Norway, wins her third consecutive Olympics figure skating gold medal in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.
1953 — Tenley Albright becomes the first American woman to win a world figure skating title beating Germany’s Gundi Busch at the World Championships in Davos, Switzerland.
1964 — Ken Hubbs, the 22-year-old Chicago Cubs second baseman, dies when his private plane crashes in Utah. The 1962 NL Rookie of the Year had his pilot’s license for two weeks and was flying in bad weather.
1974 — Boston’s Phil Esposito scores his 1,000th point with an assist in the Bruins’ 4-2 victory over the Vancouver Canucks.
1978 — Leon Spinks wins a 15-round split decision over Muhammad Ali to take the world heavyweight title at Las Vegas.
1980 — Rookie Wayne Gretzky ties the NHL record with seven assists in a game and sets a scoring record for first-year players in Edmonton’s 8-2 victory over the Washington Capitals.
1986 — A crowd of 44,180, at the time the largest to attend an NBA game, turned out at the Pontiac Silverdome to watch the Pistons beat the Sixers 134-133 in overtime.
1994 — Kentucky makes one of the greatest comebacks in college basketball history with a 99-95 victory over LSU after trailing by 31 points with 15:30 to play.
1994 — Freshman Ila Borders becomes the first woman to pitch in an NCAA or NAIA game. The left-hander pitches a complete-game for Southern California College, allowing five hits in the Vanguards’ 12-1 win over Claremont-Mudd.
1995 — Charlie Standish sets a PBA record by rolling three perfect games in the first round of the Peoria Open bowling tournament. Standish rolls the 300s in the second, fourth and sixth games of the six-game round and at one point has 23 consecutive strikes.
1998 — Dale Earnhardt takes the Daytona 500 on his 20th try and ends a 59-race winless streak on the day NASCAR begins celebrating its 50th anniversary.
2000 — Martin Brodeur becomes first goaltender in NHL history to get credit for a “game winning” goal as New Jersey wins, 4-2 over the visiting Philadelphia Flyers.
2002 — The worst judging scandal in Winter Olympics history is resolved, with Canadian pairs figure skaters Jamie Sale and David Pelletier declared co-gold medalists with the Russian winners.
2004 — Dale Earnhardt Jr. barrels past Tony Stewart to win the Daytona 500 on the same track that claimed his father’s life three years ago. Junior wins this race in his fifth try, the same race that bedeviled his later father for 19 years.
2007 — Joe Sakic scores twice, including his 600th career goal, and adds three assists and Milan Hejduk has three goals to lead Colorado to a 7-5 win at Calgary.
2010 — American Seth Wescott defends his Olympic title in Vancouver, British Columbia, overtaking Canada’s Mike Robertson to win the gold medal in the wild sport of men’s snowboardcross. Didier Defago wins the gold in the Olympic downhill and American Bode Miller breaks his personal streak of major championship mishaps by taking the bronze.
2013 — Ted Ligety becomes the first man in 45 years to win three gold medals at a skiing world championships. French great Jean-Claude Killy took home four golds in 1968. Ligety wins giant slalom by a massive margin for his third gold. Earlier in the championships held in Schladming, Austria, Ligety won the super-G and super-combined — both events he had never won on the World Cup circuit.
2014 — Renaud Lavillenie breaks Sergei Bubka’s 21-year-old indoor pole vault world record in Donetsk, Ukraine. Lavillenie clears the bar comfortably at 6.16 meters (20 feet, 2 1/2 inches) in Bubka’s home city, almost to the day the pole vault great cleared achieved 6.15 (20-2) on Feb. 21, 1993.
2018 - German figure skaters Aliona Savchenko and Bruno Massot set new ISU best free skating score of 159.31 on their way to pairs gold medal at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.
2024 — Caitlin Clark becomes the NCAA Division I women’s career scoring leader in a game for Iowa against Michigan, scoring a career-high 49 points.
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Feb. 16
1961 — Elgin Baylor of Los Angeles scores 57 points to lead the Lakers over the Detroit Pistons 129-106.
1967 — Rick Barry of the San Francisco Warriors scores 52 points against Chicago at Fresno for his second consecutive 50-point game.
1969 — Alex Delvecchio of the Detroit Red Wings gets his 1,000th point with an assist in a 6-3 victory over the Los Angeles Kings.
1970 — Joe Frazier retains his world heavyweight title with a fifth-round knockout of Jimmy Ellis.
1972 — Wilt Chamberlain of the Los Angeles Lakers becomes the first player in NBA history to reach the 30,000 point mark during a 110-109 loss to the Phoenix Suns.
1989 — Chicago’s Michael Jordan scores 27 of his 50 points in the fourth quarter, to lead the Bulls to a 117-116 win over the Milwaukee Bucks.
1992 — Martina Navratilova becomes the career singles titles leader by beating Jana Novotna in three sets in the final of the Virginia Slims of Chicago. Navratilova, with her 158th career singles championship, passes Chris Evert, who retired in 1989.
1992 — Chicago’s Michel Goulet becomes the 17th NHL player to score 500 goals, getting one in the first period of the Blackhawks’ 5-5 tie with Calgary.
1994 — John Stockton hands out 12 assists in Utah’s 103-99 road win over the Los Angeles Clippers to become the third guard in NBA history (joining Magic Johnson and Oscar Robertson) to reach 9,000 career assists.
1997 — Jeff Gordon, 25, becomes the youngest winner of the Daytona 500 after Dale Earnhardt crashes 12 laps from the end to prolong his Daytona 500 jinx.
2001 — Philadelphia coach Larry Brown earns his 1,000th professional win, including his ABA record. Brown, 1,000-707 overall, ranks third on the career list behind Toronto’s Lenny Wilkens and Miami’s Pat Riley. Allen Iverson’s 42 points leads the 76ers to a 108-93 win over the Los Angeles Clippers.
2009 — Harness driver Brian Sears drives seven winners on the Presidents Day afternoon card at the Meadowlands. The last driver to win seven races on a 10-race card at the Meadowlands was John Campbell on Feb. 3, 1983.
2013 — American teenager Mikaela Shiffrin becomes the youngest woman in 39 years to win the slalom title at the world alpine championships held in Schladming, Austria. At the age of 17 years, 340 days, Shiffrin edges local hope Michaela Kirchgasser. The only slalom world champions younger than Shiffrin were Hanni Wenzel of Liechtenstein in 1974 and Esme Mackinnon of Britain in 1931.
2014 - American Bode Miller (36) becomes the oldest medalist in Olympic alpine skiing history when he ties for bronze in the super-G in Sochi
2017 — Lowell Bailey upsets the pre-race favorites in the men’s individual competition to become the first American biathlete to win gold at the world championships. Bailey beats out Ondrej Moravec of the Czech Republic and three-time world champion Martin Fourcade of France.
2017 — Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby feeds Chris Kunitz for a first-period goal against Winnipeg to become the 86th player in NHL history to reach the 1,000-point plateau. He adds an assist on Phil Kessel’s game-tying goal in the third and then puts the winner past Connor Hellebuyck with 21 seconds left in overtime as the Penguins escaped with a 4-3 victory.
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Feb. 17
1923 — Cy Denneny of the Ottawa Senators becomes the NHL’s career scoring leader. He scores his 143rd goal to surpass Joe Malone in a 2-0 win over the Montreal Canadiens.
1924 — Johnny Weissmuller sets a world record in the 100-yard freestyle swim with a time of 52.4 seconds.
1926 — Suzanne Lenglen beats Helen Wills 6-3, 8-6 in Cannes, France, in their only tennis match against each other.
1928 — Sweden’s Gillis Grafstrom successfully defends his 1920 and 1924 Olympic figure skating title, with Austrian Willy Bockl finishing in second place as he did four years earlier.
1941 — Joe Louis knocks out Gus Dorazio in the second round in Philadelphia to defend his world heavyweight title.
1955 — Mike Souchak establishes the PGA 72-hole scoring record with a 257 at the Texas Open. Souchak starts with a record-tying 60 at San Antonio’s Brackenridge Park course and ends with a 27-under-par, beating the previous low for a 72-hole event by two shots.
1968 — The Basketball Hall of Fame opens in Springfield, Mass.
1974 — Richard Petty wins his second straight Daytona 500. It’s the fifth Daytona 500 title for Petty, who also won in 1964, 1966, 1971 and 1973.
1992 — Raisa Smetanina wins a gold medal with the Unified Team in the 20-kilometer cross-country relay to set the career Winter Olympics medal record with 10. Smetanina, 39, also becomes the oldest champion and the first to win a medal in five straight Winter Games.
1994 — San Antonio’s David Robinson records the fourth quadruple-double in NBA history with 34 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists and 10 blocks in the Spurs’ 115-96 win over Detroit.
1998 — The U.S. women’s hockey team wins the sport’s first Olympic gold medal. Sandra Whyte scores on an empty-netter with 8 seconds left to give the United States a 3-1 victory over Canada.
2010 — Americans Lindsey Vonn and Julia Mancuso finish 1-2 in the downhill at the Vancouver Olympics. It’s the first time since 1984 that the U.S won gold and silver in a women’s Alpine event.
2013 — Danica Patrick wins the Daytona 500 pole, becoming the first woman to secure the top spot for any Sprint Cup race.
2014 — Meryl Davis and Charlie White win the gold medal in ice dance, the first Olympic title in the event for the U.S..
2018 — Japan’s Yuzuru Hanyu becomes the first man to successfully defend his Olympic figure skating title since Dick Button in 1952.
2020 - 62nd Daytona 500: Denny Hamlin wins second straight title by 0.014 seconds over Ryan Blaney on the second restart in overtime; his third Daytona victory
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