IHL owners also approved the sale of the Kentucky Thoroughblades to the NHL's San Jose Sharks and the transfer of the franchise from Lexington to Cleveland.
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Right winger Martin Lapointe says there is about a 50 percent chance he will return to the Detroit Red Wings next season - odds he said will increase if coach Scotty Bowman returns for a ninth season with the team.
Pro basketball
The Charlotte Hornets promoted assistant general manager Jeff Bower to general manager.
Boxing
Welterweight Anthony Thompson of Philadelphia, along with light-flyweight Ron Siler and light-welterweight Juan McPherson, gave the struggling United States its first victories in the World Amateur Boxing Championships in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Thompson beat Daniel Geale of Australia, 13-4, while Siler, of Cincinnati, won an 18-7 decision against Varoclas Midyk of Ukraine. McPherson, of Cleveland, stopped Dong Yu Sheng of China in the third round.
Five other Americans failed to make it through their opening bouts in the first two days.
Joey Maxim, 79, a former light-heavyweight champion who outlasted Sugar Ray Robinson in a sweltering title fight in 1952, died Saturday, in West Palm Beach, Fla., a local Veterans Administration hospital official said.
He had been hospitalized in Cleveland but went to Florida to be with his two daughters.
Colleges
President Bush will watch Stanford and Tulane play Friday in the opening game of the College World Series in Omaha, Neb.
Florida baseball coach Andy Lopez was fired after a 35-27 season, his seventh year with the Gators.
Western Kentucky women's basketball coach Steve Small, the second-winningest coach in the program's history, retired.
Rick Callahan, who spent more than 10 years coaching under former South Carolina coach Eddie Fogler, was introduced as the new assistant men's basketball coach to Penn State's Jerry Dunn.
Attorneys for Duke University filed an appeal asking that a $2 million award given to a former female placekicker be reduced.
The school did not contest the verdict itself.
Heather Sue Mercer claimed that former Duke football coach Fred Goldsmith let her join the team in 1995, then treated her differently from the male players before informing her she would not be allowed to remain on the team.
Golf
Although Jack Nicklaus' streak of 44 straight appearances in the U.S. Open will end this year, his son, Gary, will be in the field. The younger Nicklaus had two 66s for the lowest 36-hole score yesterday during sectional qualifying at the Lakes Golf and Country Club and Double Eagle Club in Columbus, Ohio.
The U.S. Open is next week at Southern Hills in Tulsa, Okla.
Track
Berhane Adere of Ethiopia won the women's 5,000 meters in 14 minutes, 51.67 seconds, the year's fastest time, in the FBK Games in Hengelo, Netherlands.
World-record holder Christiana Iloc Casandra of Romania won the 3,000-meter steeplechase in 9:45.12, nearly 12 second faster than Anita Weyermann of Switzerland.
