Lindros Joins Elite Club as MVP

Eric Lindros took his place among hockey’s elite Thursday when he was voted most valuable player in the NHL.

“It’s a great honor to be here,” said Lindros, the captain of the Philadelphia Flyers. “It’s the elite of the elite.”

Lindros got 10 of 26 first-place votes of sportswrters in outpolling Pittsburgh forward Jaromir Jagr and Buffalo goalie Dominik Hasek.

Hasek had the consolation of being voted best goalie for the second consecutive season on the strength of a 2.13 goals-against average and an 18-6-3 record. Jagr won the Art Ross Trophy as the league’s top scorer.

Quebec, which is moving to Denver next season, won two awards. Peter Forsberg was named rookie of the year and Marc Crawford was coach of the year. Paul Coffey of Detroit was named best defenseman for the third time and Pittsburgh’s Ron Francis was honored as best defensive forward and as the most gentlemanly player.

Football

The University of Maryland has declared at least one football player ineligible for gambling on college sporting events, but the school has submitted an appeal to the NCAA, Debbie Yow, the school’s athletic director, said.

Yow would not name names, and would not say how many players were involved, but the Washington Post reported Thursday that quarterback Scott Milanovich probably will sit out at least one game because of allegations he bet on college basketball games.

A knee injury forced Walter Sweeney’s retirement from the Washington Redskins in 1975, and he is asking a federal judge to award him more than $912,000 in disability benefits because he blames drugs that were “widely administered by NFL teams” for his inability to hold down a regular job the last 19 years.

Sweeney, 54, who is being treated at a San Diego County drug rehabilitation center, contends he was “repeatedly urged to take drugs by the team staff and doctors, and as a young player [was] willing to do what it took to succeed in the NFL, he did what he was told.”

Roller Hockey

Bullfrog goalie Rob Laurie made two key saves in the fourth quarter to help Anaheim defeat the Oklahoma Coyotes, 9-6, in a Roller Hockey International game at Oklahoma City. Victor Gervais scored two goals and had two assists for Anaheim (8-0-1). The Coyotes are 3-6.

Jurisprudence

In a 911 police tape, Seattle Seahawk wide receiver Brian Blades is heard trying to prevent a fight when his cousin was shot to death.

The death of Charles Blades, 34, in Plantation, Fla., is being treated as a homicide by police.

In a tape of a second 911 call, another person present told police that Charles Blades was shot “accidentally” by “his cousin.”

Running back Travis Cozart, a junior college transfer at Tennessee who already had been disciplined for his involvement in a telephone fraud scandal at the school, was charged with assault after his arrest at a July 4 cookout.

Olympics

Billy Payne, the head of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, said he would not get involved in sprinter Michael Johnson’s effort to change the 1996 track and field schedule.

Johnson, the world champion at 200 meters in 1991 and 400 meters in 1993, has said he would like to run both races in Atlanta next year, but the schedule makes it difficult because the events overlap on two days.

Soccer

Second-half goals by Jose Cardoso and Antonio Samaniego gave Paraguay a 2-1 victory over Mexico in a first-round match at the Copa America tournament in Maldonado, Uruguay. Luis Garcia scored for Mexico in the final minute of the first half.

Juan Jose Bellini, head of Colombia’s soccer federation and accused of having links to drug traffickers, resigned after a top prosecutor said he was considering an investigation of Bellini’s ties to the Cali drug cartel.

Names in the News

Purdue basketball Coach Gene Keady signed a new seven-year contract. . . . An autopsy determined that former Minnesota Twin shortstop Zoilo Versalles, who was found dead June 9 in Bloomington, Minn., died of hardening of the arteries at 55. . . . Austria’s Sylvia Eder, who at 16 became the youngest women to win a World Cup Alpine skiing race, announced her retirement at 29.