Duck Defenseman Salei Wins Arbitration Case

Mighty Duck defenseman Ruslan Salei won his arbitration hearing Monday and will receive $2.4 million next season. Salei earned $1.75 million last season, when he had four goals and 11 assists. Salei, 29, is an eight-year veteran.

An arbitrator awarded King forward Eric Belanger a $950,000 contract for next season. Belanger had 13 goals and 20 points in 81 games last season.

The Kings have committed $32.665 million to 20 players for next season, some of which are two-way contracts that pay a player less if he is in the minor leagues.

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Buffalo added $1.3 million to its payroll by re-signing forward J.P. Dumont and goaltender Martin Biron.

Dumont, the team’s third-leading scorer, avoided arbitration by signing a one-year, $2.1-million deal with a $700,000 raise.

An arbitrator awarded Biron a $600,000 raise in a one-year contract for $2.8 million.

Defenseman Brad Brown avoided arbitration by agreeing to a one-year, $700,000 contract.

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Tampa Bay avoided arbitration with Fredrik Modin, agreeing to a multi-year contract with the left winger. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

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The Nashville Predators re-signed forward Vladimir Orszagh. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Pro Basketball

Minnesota re-signed point guard Troy Hudson, a month after the two sides agreed to terms on a contract worth up to $37 million over six seasons.

Provisions in the contract regarding Hudson’s health -- he sat out the playoffs and all but 29 regular-season games because of a severely sprained ankle -- were the source of the holdup.

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Houston hopes it has solved its point guard problems with the signings of free agents Charlie Ward and Bob Sura.

The two NBA veterans will compete with recently acquired guard Tyrone Lue.

The Rockets are in need of a new point guard after Steve Francis was traded to the Orlando Magic in a seven-player deal that sent two-time league scoring champ Tracy McGrady to Houston.

Ward, a 10-year veteran, spent most of his career with the New York Knicks. Sura is a nine-year veteran.

Jurisprudence

A judge at Decatur, Ga., ordered the arrest of former NFL receiver Andre Rison for failing to pay $107,350 in child support.

The judge ruled that Rison is in contempt of court and should be jailed for 20 days. Rison was not in court.

Rison hasn’t paid his $3,500-a-month child-support payment for his 16- and 18-year-old children since August 2002, the order said.

The child-support total is $87,500, with the additional amount coming from interest and attorney’s fees.

Miscellany

Second-seeded Nikolay Davydenko lost to Adrian Garcia, 3-6, 7-6 (5), 6-4, and fifth-seeded Alberto Martin lost to Juan Monaco, 6-7 (13), 7-5, 6-3, in the first round of the Prokom Open tennis tournament at Sopot, Poland.

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Former UCLA All-American Maylana Martin has been hired by the school as an assistant on the women’s team.

Passings

Art Steffen, a four-year letterman who played fullback at UCLA from 1945 to 1948, died of pulmonary fibrosis July 29 in his Claremont home. He was 80.

Steffen, a co-captain in 1948, won the team’s Bruin Bench Award as the outstanding senior reserve that year. He also helped the Bruins to the Pacific Coast Conference championship in 1946, rushing for 132 yards and one touchdown, and played in the 1947 Rose Bowl, where the Bruins (10-1) lost to Illinois, 45-14.

Steffen was the older brother of Jim Steffen, a former NFL player with Detroit and Washington who was UCLA’s most valuable player in 1958.