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DETROIT -- This was the slap in the face, the splash of cold water. Not necessarily one the Chicago Blackhawks needed, but one they knew was coming. During any long playoff run for a Stanley Cup contender, there are moments when a big shove back f...

Hiroki Kuroda isn't just the best pitcher on the Yankees right now. He might be the best pitcher in the American League. The 38-year-old came through for the Yankees yet again Friday night, hurling eight shutout innings in a 5-0 victory over the B...

What it means: A quarter of the way through the season, Hiroki Kuroda is pitching like a Cy Young Award contender. On the same day that 40-year-old Andy Pettitte landed on the disabled list again, the 38-year-old Kuroda was nearly perfect against ...

Blue Jays-Yankees Preview

Middleweight contender Andy Lee returned with a vengeance on Wednesday night in New York, needing just 87 second to knock out Daryl Cunningham on promoter Lou DiBella's "Broadway Boxing" card at BB King's Blues Club. The win was Lee's second in a ...

Tuneup fights can be a recipe for disaster. Just ask, for example, former heavyweight contender Tommy Morrison. He had a done deal worth $8 million to fight Lennox Lewis but took what was supposed to be an easy tuneup fight against Michael Bentt i...

The Big 12 opens 2013 with a pair of neutral-site games against the SEC. Two of the league's title contenders -- TCU and Oklahoma State -- happen to be playing in them, but the Big 12's best returning defender will be on the sidelines. From our ne...

Super middleweight contender James DeGale, a 2008 Olympic gold medalist for Great Britain, will make his North American debut Friday (WealthTV, 7 p.m. ET) when he faces Sebastien Demers at Casino du Lac-Leamy in Gatineau, Quebec. DeGale (14-1, 9 K...

Heavyweight contender Cristobal Arreola, who suffered a badly broken nose in his loss to Bermane Stiverne last month, underwent surgery on Friday and had stents removed from the nose on Monday.

Former top UFC welterweight contender Thiago Alves will return to action for the first time in more than a year on Aug. 17 when he faces Matt Brown, the promotion officially announced on Tuesday.

One of the most talked-about potential fights, in England anyway, is a showdown between countrymen Amir Khan, the former unified junior welterweight titlist, and welterweight contender Kell Brook. But Khan (28-3, 19 KOs), who has heard the talk an...

As an amateur fighter, Darley Perez was a 2008 Olympian for his native Colombia. As a professional, he is undefeated but a bit too old to still be called a prospect and not proven enough yet to be called a contender. But now that Perez (28-0, 19 K...

Welterweight contender Robert Guerrero, facing up to four years in prison for carrying an unloaded gun in a New York airport, had his case dismissed on Tuesday after pleading guilty to disorderly conduct in New York State Supreme Court for Queens County.

Our experts rank this week's Top 10 Kentucky Derby contenders

We continue our look at the lesser known Patriots opponents for 2013 with an examination of the Atlanta Falcons, a team that, on paper, looks like a Super Bowl contender. The Patriots won't have to wait long to face the team that finished with the be...

The last time Original Six rivals the Detroit Red Wings and Chicago Blackhawks met in the playoffs was in the 2009 Western Conference finals, with the Blackhawks the young bucks still figuring things out and the Red Wings the veteran contenders en ro...