HOCKEY

The all-time franchise leader in games played, points, goals and assists for the Maine Mariners is returning to Portland after a playing three games in the American Hockey League last week.

Forward Alex Kile was reassigned to the ECHL’s Mariners from the AHL’s Lehigh Valley Phantoms on Monday. Kile is currently the third leading goal scorer in the ECHL with 23 goals and his 48 points ranks fifth in the league. He has played 39 games for the Mariners this season.

Kile, 29, was on his third AHL deal with Lehigh Valley and was recalled last Monday for the first time this season. He appeared in three games for the Phantoms last week. He played a total of 19 games in the 2022-23 season for the team after 27 games in 2021-22.

NHL: Hall of Famer Lanny McDonald was hospitalized Monday, a day after suffering a cardiac event while returning from the NHL’s All-Star festivities in Toronto.

The 70-year-old McDonald wrote on a social media post Monday that he had what he described as a “cardiac event” at Calgary International Airport on Sunday, when two nurses heading to their own flights helped him when he was in distress.

“It’s true that even tough old guys need help sometimes,” McDonald wrote. “We are eternally grateful for their care and action … I owe them my life.”

McDonald said he was receiving care and looking forward to Sunday’s Super Bowl between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers.

• Washington Capitals center Evgeny Kuznetsov is entering the NHL/NHLPA player assistance program, the league and union announced Monday.

Kuznetsov will be away from the team indefinitely while he receives care. Under the terms of the program, he can return to the team for practice and then games when cleared by administrators. The Capitals said earlier Monday that Kuznetsov was not practicing for personal reasons.

BIATHLON

U.S. TEAM: The U.S. Biathlon board of directors has voted to hire an independent contractor to conduct an audit of “athlete wellness practices and team culture” following an Associated Press story that said a female team member had been sexually harassed and abused for years while racing on the elite World Cup circuit.

The AP reported last month that a U.S. Center for SafeSport investigation found that U.S. Biathlon national champion and two-time Olympian Joanne Reid had been sexually harassed by a ski-wax technician. The 18-month SafeSport investigation found that wax tech Petr “Gara” Garabik had engaged in repeated sexual harassment and unwanted sexual contact with Reid. The Czech citizen was suspended for six months and put on probation until December 2024.

TENNIS

SAUDI EXHIBITION: Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz and new Australian Open champion Jannik Sinner are slated to participate in an exhibition event in Saudi Arabia in October, the kingdom’s latest move into tennis.

Daniil Medvedev and Holger Rune are the other players involved in what is being touted as the “6 Kings Slam” in Riyadh.

All but Rune have won at least one Grand Slam title. Djokovic holds the men’s record with 24, followed by Nadal with 22. Alcaraz has two, and Sinner and Medvedev one apiece.

Nadal was recently announced as an ambassador for the Saudi Tennis Federation.

Rights groups say women continue to face discrimination in most aspects of family life in the kingdom, and homosexuality is a major taboo, as it is in most of the rest of the Middle East.

SOCCER

A MESSI MESS: The organizer of a soccer match featuring Inter Miami in Hong Kong was dealing with backlash from both angry fans and the government after widespread disappointment that Lionel Messi didn’t play in the game.

The much-hyped exhibition match on Sunday ended with fans booing Inter Miami co-owner David Beckham and demanding refunds as Messi stayed on the bench for the full 90 minutes in the game against a local team due to a hamstring strain. Organizers said Monday they had only been informed during halftime that Lionel Messi would not be playing and that they would withdraw an application for funding from the city government for staging the match.

The fans’ reaction was a setback for Hong Kong officials who sought to boost the city’s image as a hub for mega events amid a slow economic recovery and Beijing’s crackdown on dissidents.

PREMIER LEAGUE: Phil Foden grabbed the spotlight from fit-again Manchester City superstars Erling Haaland and Kevin De Bruyne by scoring a hat trick in a come-from-behind 3-1 win at Brentford that moved the champions two points behind Liverpool in a congested English Premier League summit on Monday.

SKIING

WOMEN’S WORLD CUP: Leading downhill skier Sofia Goggia crashed in training Monday and broke two bones in her right leg, ending her season prematurely.

Goggia straddled a gate with her right leg while undertaking a training giant slalom in northern Italy. The Italian Winter Sports Federation said surgery inserted a metal rod in her leg attached with seven screws to repair her tibia and malleolus bones at a Milan hospital.

Goggia is the latest top skier to crash recently following falls involving Mikaela Shiffrin, Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, Petra Vlhova, Alexis Pinturault and Corinne Suter among others.