Canadiens Put Up for Sale After Financial Losses

Hockey’s greatest dynasty is for sale.

The Montreal Canadiens, whose rich tradition of 24 championships is surpassed in North America only by baseball’s New York Yankees, were put on the market Tuesday by Molson brewery.

Molson, which has been associated with the Canadiens for 40 years, said it could no longer make money “given the current economic conditions in the NHL,” and was selling so that it could concentrate on its beer business.

The Canadiens won’t be leaving town, however, because one condition of the sale is that the team must stay in Montreal.

Rising player salaries, a lack of playoff revenue, the weak Canadian dollar and high municipal taxes on the Molson Centre, where the team plays, prompted the brewery’s decision.

“It became very clear that given the current economic conditions in the NHL, it is almost impossible to be a sole owner and deliver a winning team,” Daniel O’Neill, Molson’s new president, said at a news conference.

Serge Savard, former Canadien general manager and player, said hockey clubs have become too expensive to operate.

“Nobody could have predicted this five years ago that all professional teams would lose money,” he said.

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A medical report prepared by a concussion expert does not say when or if Philadelphia Flyers star Eric Lindros can return to the ice.

The report said Lindros should not play hockey for now, but he can do light exercise, play golf and ride a bike, provided he wears a helmet, Flyer physician Jeff Hartzell said Tuesday.

Hartzell received the report from James Kelly, a Chicago neurologist who last examined Lindros on June 7. The report did not speculate on when Lindros might possibly play again.

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The Ice Dogs will leave the International Hockey League and join the West Coast Hockey League for the 2000-01 season. . . . Robert Ridder, one of the pioneers in developing American hockey and a one-time part-owner of the Minnesota North Stars, died at his home in Mendota Heights, Minn. Ridder was 80. . . . Lee Goren, who was the most outstanding player in the Frozen Four for national champion North Dakota, was signed by the Boston Bruins.

Boxing

A former topless dancer has sued Mike Tyson, contending the boxer hit her in the chest and knocked her across the floor last month while she was working.

Victoria Bianco filed a lawsuit Friday and is seeking unspecified damages. In the lawsuit, Bianco said the former heavyweight champion struck her without provocation at Cheetah’s, a topless club near downtown Las Vegas. Cheetah’s general manager Rich Buonantony said club employees told him Tyson never touched the dancer.

Testifying at the racketeering trial of International Boxing Federation founder Robert W. Lee in Newark, N.J., boxing promoter Cedric Kushner said rival promoter Don King held the upper hand even though Kushner made regular payoffs to Lee.

“I always knew I was second fiddle, or fourth. No matter what happened, Fuzzy Wuzzy, as he was called, came first,” Kushner said during testimony.

Miscellany

An International Olympic Committee official said he welcomed signs of U.S. movement on androstenedione, commonly called andro, the muscle-building supplement baseball player Mark McGwire made famous.

“For the IOC, it’s clear . . . androstenedione has always been classified as a steroid,” IOC medical director Patrick Schamasch said. “The Americans are waking up now -- that’s a good thing.”

Olympic gold medalist and former world-record holder Donovan Bailey of Canada ran the second-fastest 100 meters of the year, clocking 9.98 seconds at a meet in Lucerne, Switzerland. . . . Lance Bade of Vancouver, Wash., finished second in the men’s double trap at the U.S. shooting trials in Atlanta and earned his second Olympic berth. Glenn Eller, 18, of Houston, who finished ahead of Bade, and Bill Keever of Phenix City, Ala., earned the other two spots on the U.S. team. Kim Rhode, an El Monte resident who won the gold medal as a 16-year-old in the 1996 Atlanta Games, will get a chance to repeat in Sydney after winning the women’s double trap championship. . . . Danyon Loader, who won gold medals in the 200- and 400-meter freestyle at the Atlanta Olympics, has retired from swimming after failing in his first attempt to qualify for New Zealand’s team for Sydney.

Greg Norman said he will have to skip the British Open because of surgery to repair a torn labrum in his right hip. Norman, 45, expects to be back for the PGA Championship in August. . . . Nebraska basketball Coach Barry Collier suspended center Kimani Ffriend and guard John Robinson for three games for violating team rules.

Organizers of the East-West Shrine Game announced they will bring the college football all-star game to San Francisco’s Pacific Bell Park for five years beginning in 2001. . . . Richmond (Va.) International Raceway will be added to the Indy Racing League schedule for the summer of 2001. . . . Portland State Athletic Director Jim Sterk will be hired at the same position at Washington State, according to the Associated Press.