Madison Square Garden

The NHL is threatening to kick the owners of the New York Rangers out of the league or force them to sell the team as punishment for accusing league officials of violating antitrust laws. The NHL filed court papers Wednesday that included a draft letter from commissioner Gary Bettman proposing discipline against Madison Square Garden L.P. that could lead to suspension or termination of its ownership of the Rangers. The Garden responded by accusing the NHL of using "bullying tactics." In its court filing, the NHL asked a judge to agree Madison Square Garden breached its contract by challenging league rules.

Three years ago, Madison Square Garden rescheduled a New York Knicks-Philadelphia 76ers basketball game from night to day to carry the closed-circuit telecast of the Sugar Ray Leonard-Marvelous Marvin Hagler middleweight championship fight."

NEW YORK KNICKS* WHEN: Tonight, 7.30* WHERE: Madison Square Garden, New York.* TV AND RADIO: Ch. 20, WBAL-AM 1090.* OUTLOOK: Washington (1-1) is coming off an upset win over the Chicago Bulls, but could run into a buzzsaw tonight. The Knicks (1-2) have lost two straight at home -- a bad start for a team trying to divest itself of the tag as the under-achievers of the Atlantic Division. Patrick Ewing and friends figure to be too much for the youthful Bullets, who can rely only on veteran forward Bernard King as a scoring threat.

NEW YORK -- There was a lengthy pause when Maryland senior D.J. Strawberry was asked to recall the last time his team played as well as it did in last night's uncontested thumping of St. John's at Madison Square Garden. "Umm," Strawberry said, "probably early in my sophomore year. The last time we played this well was when we played Memphis when I was a sophomore." Maryland vs. Michigan State 2K Sports College Hoops Classic final, tonight, 9, New York, ESPN2, 1300 AM, 105.7 FM

COLLEGE PARK -- After winning four straight games in the 2K Sports College Hoops Classic benefiting Coaches vs. Cancer, the Maryland men's basketball team came home with a 3-foot-tall trophy topped by a golden basketball, and T-shirts with the word "CHAMPIONS" on the front. After back-to-back seasons in which titles of any kind have been hard to come by, they were more than just souvenirs from Madison Square Garden in New York. Winthrop@Maryland Tonight, 8, Comcast SportsNet, 1300 AM, 105.7 FM

LAS VEGAS -- Imagine Riddick Bowe and Mike Tyson, two tough heavyweights from the same Brownsville neighborhood in Brooklyn, meeting each other in the richest boxing match in history this November at Madison Square Garden. The fighters and the promotion would net a guaranteed minimum of $120 million from a Garden crowd of 20,000 fans paying an average of $1,000 per seat and from a pay-per-view audience of at least 2 million homes.That scenario is not a figment of Rock Newman's imagination.

NEW YORK -- They lighted the top of the Empire State Building bronze and white, the colors of the Country Music Association's trophy, and they had middle school pupils from Queens writing country songs. During "Country Takes NYC" week, they've had Faith Hill at Saks Fifth Avenue, the Charlie Daniels Band on the Food Network and the Grand Ole Opry poised to take the stage at Carnegie Hall. About all they failed to do was get Mayor Michael Bloomberg in cowboy boots, although the city's newly re-elected mayor did quip that they'd "make me look a little bit taller probably."

Hasim Rahman will get a chance to win a second heavyweight title when he steps into the ring against World Boxing Council champion Vitali Klitschko, likely in May at either New York's Madison Square Garden or Las Vegas' MGM Grand or Mandalay Bay hotel, promoter Don King said last night. King said the fight's date and general terms were agreed to Wednesday in meetings with Klitschko advisers Shelly Finkel and Bernd Boente. King also said HBO officials Ross Greenburg, Mark Taffett and Kery Davis "came on board" during a meeting in Las Vegas the weekend of Dec. 11 when Klitschko, 33, knocked out Danny Williams.

Duke Jordan, 84, a pianist whose work with the saxophonist Charlie Parker endures in the jazz canon, died Tuesday in Valby, Denmark, a suburb of Copenhagen. He had lived in self-imposed exile from the United States since 1978, continuing to perform in the musical tradition he helped create. He was regarded as one of the great early bebop pianists. A handful of recordings from 1947 and 1948 featuring Mr. Parker, along with Miles Davis on trumpet, Mr. Jordan on piano and Max Roach on drums, are considered masterpieces.

Mike Trainer, Sugar Ray Leonard's attorney-manager, was in New York yesterday to confer with Madison Square Garden officials about staging Leonard's junior middleweight title fight with champion Terry Norris there on Feb. 9."I think Ray has always wanted to fight at least once in the Garden," Trainer said recently.Leonard's interest in New York put negotiations with Caesars World on hold.Trainer met yesterday with Bob Gutkowski, president of Madison Square Garden Communications, and boxing official Steve Griffith.