Update on the latest sports - KOIN.com

March 02, 2019 at 02:30AM

NHL-SENATORS-BOUCHER FIRED

Senators fire Guy Boucher, name Marc Crawford interim coach

OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) - The NHL-worst Senators have fired coach Guy Boucher (gee boo-SHAY') and named assistant Marc Crawford as the interim replacement.

General manager Pierre Dorion says Ottawa needs "a different set of coaching and leadership skills to guide our team through this rebuild."

Boucher coached the Senators to within one victory of the Stanley Cup Final in 2017 in his first season behind the bench. He previously got the Tampa Bay Lightning to within one victory of the final in 2011.

The Senators missed the playoffs last year and this season are 22-37-5 and are in last place among the league's 31 teams. Boucher is the seventh coach to be fired this season.

Crawford coached the Colorado Avalanche to the Stanley Cup in 1996. The 58-year-old was an associate coach on Boucher's staff. Dorion says the Senators will search for a new full-time coach after the season.

NFL-EAGLES-GRAHAM

Eagles defensive end Brandon Graham gets 3-year deal

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - The Philadelphia Eagles and defensive end Brandon Graham have agreed to a three-year contract extension, preventing the team's longest-tenured defensive player from testing free agency.

Graham had just four sacks last season after a career-high 9 ½ in 2017, including a strip-sack on Tom Brady to secure Philadelphia's 41-33 victory over New England in the Super Bowl in February 2018.

Graham was the 13th overall pick in the 2010 NFL draft. He has 42 ½ sacks, 16 forced fumbles and four fumble recoveries in 127 games, 70 starts.

The Eagles on Wednesday said they wouldn't place a franchise tag on backup quarterback Nick Foles.

They were 9-7 in 2018 and won a wild-card playoff game at Chicago before losing at New Orleans.

NFL-PATRIOTS OWNER-PROSTITUTION CHARGE

Prosecutors haven't seen videos in Patriots owner's case

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - Prosecutors haven't yet seen videos police say show New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and other men engaging in sex acts and handing over cash in a Florida spa.

Lawyers for some of the men have filed court motions to keep the videos from being made public, arguing their clients were recorded without their consent.

A spokesman for the Palm Beach County State Attorney's office said each police department decides how to handle such footage before a case goes to trial, and, that the Jupiter Police Department hasn't given prosecutors the videos investigators say include Kraft.

Kraft was among hundreds of men charged in a crackdown on massage parlor prostitution and an investigation into human trafficking at Florida spas. He has pleaded not guilty to two counts of misdemeanor solicitation of prostitution.

MLB-PHILLIES-HARPER

Harper, Phils agree to record $330M deal

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - The Philadelphia Phillies finally landed Bryce Harper with a record contract. Beating out Manny Machado's recent record contract, the young star outfielder and the Philadelphia Phillies have agreed to a $330 million, 13-year contract, the largest deal in baseball history. Phillies manager Gabe Kapler and his players learned of the agreement from fans who saw media reports on their mobile devices during a spring training game in Florida.

The 26-year-old All-Star had spent his entire big league career with the Washington Nationals. Harper has a .279 career average with 184 homers and 521 RBIs, including a .268 average with 14 homers, 32 RBIs and a .930 OPS in 47 games at Citizens Bank Park. He likely would hit third or fourth, according to Kapler.

WCUP-WOMEN'S DOWNHILL CANCELED

World Cup downhill in Sochi called off for poor snow surface

KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia (AP) - The second-to-last women's downhill of the World Cup season has been canceled in Russia after poor course conditions meant a mandatory training session was canceled for three straight days.

Downhill's high speeds mean athletes can't be expected to race on a course without having trained on it.

The Saturday morning race slot will go to a super-G, which was scheduled for Sunday.

A second super-G will be raced on Sunday, using the vacant day to reschedule a race canceled in January at St. Anton, Austria.

This weekend, American star Mikaela Shiffrin will be mathematically confirmed as the winner of her third straight World Cup overall title. Shiffrin leads the standings by more than 700 points from her main rival Petra Vlhova of Slovakia. Only six races will remain when the circuit leaves Russia.

COLLEGE CHEERLEADER - RAPE ACCUSATION

Cheer coaches resign after rape allegations end season

GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) - Two cheerleading coaches at a North Carolina college have resigned following rape allegations by a cheer team member who says they didn't report her claims.

The News & Record reports that a North Carolina A&T State University spokesman announced the departures Thursday, a day after the university said the cheer team won't perform at its basketball games or at the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference tournament in March.

A&T's cheerleaders haven't performed since early February after a cheerleader alleged publicly that a former member of the marching band raped her. The cheerleader says the team's two coaches brushed off her claims and didn't report them as required by federal law. She had demanded that both coaches be fired.

FIFA-CHUNG BANNED

FIFA bans former senior VP Chung for financial misconduct

ZURICH (AP) - Former FIFA (FEE'-fuh) senior vice president David Chung has been banned from soccer for 6 1/2 years for financial wrongdoing linked to a $20 million building project.

FIFA says ethics committee judges found Chung guilty of "having offered and accepted gifts" and "conflict of interest."

Chung was fined $100,000.

Chung resigned as the Oceania soccer confederation president last April after a FIFA-appointed audit found irregularities linked to building Oceania's new headquarters in Auckland, New Zealand.

FIFA froze funding to the 11-member regional body.

Chung had been president of Papua New Guinea's soccer federation since 2004. He rose to lead Oceania after a World Cup bidding scandal implicated his predecessor Reynald Temarii of Tahiti.

NORDIC WORLDS-DOPING RAIDS

Austrian police investigating man who leaked raid video

VIENNA (AP) - The leaking of a video showing Austrian skier Max Hauke apparently caught with a needle in his arm during a police raid has led to consequences for the leaker.

Austria's Federal Police Office said on Friday the person who shared the video of the Wednesday raid in Seefeld on a messaging app was "immediately removed from duty." It did not identify the man or his job, saying only that he faced criminal and departmental disciplinary measures.

The video , posted online by a Norwegian news portal, shows Hauke apparently with a banned blood transfusion going to his arm, while a police investigator stands in the background. Police have confirmed the video showed Hauke.

Police raids in Erfurt (UR'-foort), Germany, and at the Nordic skiing world championships led to the arrests of five elite skiers and four other people on Wednesday.

RUSSIAN DOPING - BEER BAN

Russia is banning sportspeople from drinking alcohol when they're tested for banned substances.

MOSCOW (AP) - A beer with your urine sample? No longer in Russian sports.

Citing "aggressive" athletes and interference with drug-testing results, Russia has barred sportspeople from drinking alcohol when they're tested for banned substances.

A post-race beer might help a dehydrated athlete produce a urine sample, but now they'll have to stick to "large quantities of water" provided by the drug-testers. The Russian anti-doping agency said that drinking was a particular problem with track and field athletes.

The Russian agency found beer could interfere with the results of the "biological passport" program checking athletes for signs of drug use. An agency official said that there was no evidence athletes were deliberately trying to manipulate the tests and that Athletes won't get a doping ban over a single brew.

Anyone turning up with a brew will be given a "strict" warning to put it away, and if they ignore that they'll be referred to their sport's governing body.

IDITAROD

Alaska's 47th Iditarod sled dog race kicks off this weekend

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - The Iditarod, the world's foremost sled dog race kicks off its 47th running this weekend as organizers and competitors strive to push past a punishing two years for the image of the sport.

In December, race organizers cleared four-time winner Dallas Seavey of any wrongdoing in a 2017 dog-doping scandal. New members also have been appointed to the Iditarod's governing board following musher discontent over perceived conflicts.

But animal activists are turning up the heat over multiple dog deaths in the history of the 1,000-mile race, which spans mountain ranges, the frozen Yukon River and dangerous sea ice along the Bering Sea coast, with village checkpoints staged across the trail. Big-name sponsors continue to drop their support, and have been replaced by smaller, Alaska-based backers.

This year's total purse is $500,000 - about $250,000 below the 2017 purse.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, a longtime Iditarod critic, plans to protest at both starting points. By PETA's count, more than 150 dogs have died in the race, including one last year. Five dogs connected with the 2017 race also died.

The total number of deaths is disputed by race officials, who cannot provide their own count because they say no records of dog deaths were kept in the Iditarod's early years.