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Comcast-owned sports channel OLN is poised to enter boxing in a big way, in a move that would add another major indoor sport to the lineup of a channel that used to be called the Outdoor Life Network. Several people familiar with the negotiations, who did not want to be identified, said OLN is close to sealing a 10- to 12-date deal with boxing promoter Bob Arum that would create a national Thursday night fight series beginning in July. OLN would pay Arum $250,000 per date to produce the boxing shows, the people said.

Bill Clement has found a new home. The former Flyer who served as a color analyst both locally and, most recently, for ESPN is expected to be named today as a studio host for NHL telecasts on OLN, a cable network owned by Comcast. Clement, who signed a two-year contract, had been hoping to secure either that job or one as a color analyst on OLN's telecasts. "I'm moving inside now, and it looks like there will be several hosts in the studio," Clement said yesterday. "I would have been OK with either position - studio or color analyst.

OLN, after its surprise, multimillion-dollar bid this month to win cable-TV rights to NHL games, surprised hardly anyone yesterday by naming Mike "Doc" Emrick as its play-by-play announcer. Emrick, who was the TV voice of the Flyers from 1988 to 1993, is a blue-chip choice for the former Outdoor Life Network as it seeks to establish credibility with hockey fans. In 32 years of broadcasting, Emrick has worked as lead play-by-play NHL announcer for ESPN and Fox. NBC is expected to name him primary announcer for its 2006 NHL games, which will air on Saturdays beginning in January.

OLN, the Comcast subsidiary that recently acquired the rights to NHL telecasts, may be seeking to expand its coverage of team sports. The cable channel, which before the hockey deal had focused on hunting, fishing, bull riding and bicycle racing, is reportedly trying to add major-league baseball and indoor lacrosse to its programing mix. OLN reaches about 64 million homes in the United States. MediaWeek reported that OLN is seeking to wrest Sunday and Wednesday baseball games from ESPN when ESPN's contract to televise the games ends after this season.

An hour before Wednesday's first-ever NHL telecast by Comcast-owned cable channel OLN, Jeff Shell dropped by the digital TV production room in the recesses of the Wachovia Center. Comcast's president of programming was just checking in on his company's little $200 million-plus investment in the rights to televise NHL hockey for the next three years. He wanted to ask the producers a few questions about camera angles, and convey his complete confidence in the staff that would deliver Comcast's first national professional sports telecast.

ESPN last night dropped out of bidding for NHL games for this season, refusing to match an offer made by Comcast's Outdoor Life Network. OLN now seems likely to televise hockey games nationally when the season starts in October. "Tonight, we informed the NHL that we did not accept their final contract offer," ESPN president George Bodenheimer said. ". . . Given the prolonged work stoppage and the league's TV ratings history, no financial model even remotely supports the contract terms offered.

At the Outdoor Life Network, July has long been the sweetest month. At OLN, which is owned by Comcast Corp., July means the Tour de France and Lance Armstrong. That combination gives OLN the biggest ratings numbers it will get all year. But for some time now, the Stamford, Conn.-based network has been pondering next year's event, the first le Tour sans Lance. "We've been thinking about it and losing sleep over it since before last year's tour," OLN president Gavin Harvey said in an interview last week.

Philadelphia-based Comcast Corp. yesterday made its biggest splash yet in national sports television, and the resurrected National Hockey League found someone willing to pay millions to put its games on TV in the United States. The league and the cable company unveiled details of their TV deal, under which Comcast-owned cable channel OLN will dedicate Monday and Tuesday nights to NHL games beginning in October. OLN, available in 64 million U.S. homes, will show at least 58 regular-season hockey games, the NHL All-Star Game, and the playoffs up through Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals, when NBC will pick up coverage.

The Flyers, who will host the new hockey season's first nationally televised game Oct. 5 against the Rangers on cable channel OLN, will appear on OLN six other times and play four times on NBC this season. Comcast-owned OLN will televise 58 regular-season games, mostly on Monday and Tuesday nights, as it begins its first season carrying a major-league team sport. NBC will broadcast six Saturday-afternoon national and regional games starting in January. The Flyers' national games include two against the defending Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning and three against the Pittsburgh Penguins, who will feature rookie Sidney Crosby.

Comcast and National Hockey League negotiators have worked out a two-year deal for more than $100 million to televise games beginning this fall, according to sources directly involved in the discussions. The agreement must be approved by the league's Board of Governors. The deal calls for Comcast to televise two games a week nationally. The cable giant plans to put the games on its Outdoor Life Network (OLN). The agreement with Comcast brought to an end 10 days of intense negotiations, some of which were conducted at Comcast's offices in Philadelphia.

The Flyers are slated for 11 national television appearances this season, according to the NHL TV schedule released yesterday. Three of those dates are against Pittsburgh and another three are against Buffalo. Seven of those games will be on Versus, the network formerly known as OLN. The name change takes place Sept. 25. The network will feature a 54-game schedule, broadcasting mostly on Mondays and Tuesdays. The Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes will play the Buffalo Sabres as part of an Oct. 4 opening night doubleheader on Versus.

The television ratings for the Stanley Cup Finals have been small, which is certainly no revelation. But Flyers chairman Ed Snider said that one shouldn't judge the sport's popularity by the minuscule ratings. "This is not a knock on hockey," Snider said yesterday. "We play at a higher capacity than just about any sport. In the local markets, the teams have strong followings. " Snider added that the NHL has to do a better job of developing fans in the black community. He also pointed out that the NHL hasn't been helped by the fact that two small-market teams - Edmonton and Carolina - are competing in the Finals.

Comcast-owned sports channel OLN is poised to enter boxing in a big way, in a move that would add another major indoor sport to the lineup of a channel that used to be called the Outdoor Life Network. Several people familiar with the negotiations, who did not want to be identified, said OLN is close to sealing a 10- to 12-date deal with boxing promoter Bob Arum that would create a national Thursday night fight series beginning in July. OLN would pay Arum $250,000 per date to produce the boxing shows, the people said.

Tiger Woods got caught in the rain without an umbrella. And with sloppy bogeys on the final two holes yesteray, he left Riviera wondering whether he would get a tee time on the weekend. Soaked to the bone, his cap on backward to keep rain from dripping off the brim, Woods missed an 8-foot par putt on his final hole for a 3-over-par 74 that put him below the cut line and left him desperate for help from the four dozen players trying to finish in shivering conditions. When the second round finally ended, he got enough help from other golfers to make it on the number.

For some fans of the NHL who expected to watch this season's games on Comcast Corp.'s OLN, last season's lockout continues. That's because OLN is engaged in a gloves-off brawl with two of its distributors. One is Cablevision, the Long Island-based cable network that provides OLN to 22,000 of its 3 million customers in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. The other is Dish Network, which provides OLN to 3.3 million of its 11 million subscribers nationwide, many of them in the Philadelphia area.

An hour before Wednesday's first-ever NHL telecast by Comcast-owned cable channel OLN, Jeff Shell dropped by the digital TV production room in the recesses of the Wachovia Center. Comcast's president of programming was just checking in on his company's little $200 million-plus investment in the rights to televise NHL hockey for the next three years. He wanted to ask the producers a few questions about camera angles, and convey his complete confidence in the staff that would deliver Comcast's first national professional sports telecast.

All of the Flyers games this season will be televised, most of them on cable. Comcast SportsNet, the regional cable carrier, will show 61 games and OLN, a national cable network owned by Comcast, will televise seven, including the opener against the New York Rangers tonight. Channel 57 (UPN) will televise 10 games and Channel 10 (NBC) will present four Saturday afternoon games as part of its regional coverage of the NHL. Jim Jackson, former NHL player Steve Coates, and former Flyer Gary Dornhoefer will return as the Flyers' announcing team for the games on Comcast SportsNet and Channel 57. It will be their seventh season together.

Two prominent sports leaders have asked the World Anti-Doping Agency to suspend a French laboratory and investigate who leaked documents leading to a report that Lance Armstrong used banned substances during the 1999 Tour de France. Denis Oswald, president of the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations, and Sergei Bubka, IOC athlete's commission chief, made the request in a joint letter, the French sports daily L'Equipe reported yesterday. Last month, L'Equipe published evidence allegedly showing that six of Armstrong's frozen urine samples from 1999 came back positive for endurance-boosting EPO when they were retested last year.

Bill Clement has found a new home. The former Flyer who served as a color analyst both locally and, most recently, for ESPN is expected to be named today as a studio host for NHL telecasts on OLN, a cable network owned by Comcast. Clement, who signed a two-year contract, had been hoping to secure either that job or one as a color analyst on OLN's telecasts. "I'm moving inside now, and it looks like there will be several hosts in the studio," Clement said yesterday. "I would have been OK with either position - studio or color analyst.

The Flyers, who will host the new hockey season's first nationally televised game Oct. 5 against the Rangers on cable channel OLN, will appear on OLN six other times and play four times on NBC this season. Comcast-owned OLN will televise 58 regular-season games, mostly on Monday and Tuesday nights, as it begins its first season carrying a major-league team sport. NBC will broadcast six Saturday-afternoon national and regional games starting in January. The Flyers' national games include two against the defending Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning and three against the Pittsburgh Penguins, who will feature rookie Sidney Crosby.