LOCAL SPORTS
Pictou County Pride and Queer Hockey Nova Scotia are teaming up to host a free community skate and a hockey game tonight at the Pictou County Wellness Centre. The game will feature players from across Pictou County against players from Halifax. Pictou County Pride chair Carissa Ainslie said Queer Hockey Nova Scotia reached out to her group a few months ago to see if there was an opportunity to collaborate on events. Ainslie said PC Pride was happy to be able to present the event outside of their pride festival, which runs June 17-23. The free skate begins at 5, followed by the hockey game around 6:30. Donations will be accepted at the door for both organizations, and some of the jerseys made for the game will be raffled off.
The Antigonish Jr. X-Men U10 boys basketball team are hosting eight teams from Nova Scotia & New Brunswick in the Kings of the Court Tournament. Action begins at 9:30 with Antigonish v East Hants & North Preston v Pictou. Games continue through the afternoon at St. Andrew Junior School, with the semi-finals and finals tomorrow at Antigonish Education Centre.
NATIONAL SPORTS
Justin Turner hit a solo homer and drove in another run with a single as the Toronto Blue Jays beat the San Diego Padres 5-1 for their fifth win in six games. Toronto reliever Bowden Francis picked up the win, allowing one hit and no runs in two innings.
William Contreras drove in the go-ahead run in the 10th inning and finished with two R-B-Is as the Milwaukee Brewers beat the St. Louis Cardinals 2-1. Contreras hit a two-out single off Ryan Helsley in the 10th inning that scored automatic runner Blake Perkins, breaking a 1-1 tie.
Travis d’Arnaud hit a go-ahead grand slam in the sixth inning for a three-homer game and the Atlanta Braves beat the Texas Rangers 8-3 for their fifth straight win. Chris Sale allowed three runs and five hits in seven innings in the interleague matchup of first-place teams.
Brandon Ingram scored 24 points, Jonas Valanciunas added 19 points and 12 rebounds, and the New Orleans Pelicans booked a spot in the NBA playoffs with a 105-98 victory over the Sacramento Kings in a play-in tournament elimination game. The Pelicans won without leading scorer Zion Williamson, who strained his left hamstring in a play-in loss to the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday night.
Max Verstappen has continued his dominance in Formula 1 and took the first sprint race of the season — the prelude to the full-blown Chinese Grand Prix on Sunday. Verstappen passed Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes on the ninth of 19 laps and then stretched out his lead to win about 10 seconds.
An Australian newspaper says 23 Chinese swimmers were cleared to compete at the Tokyo Olympics despite testing positive to doping because world governing bodies agreed with Chinese authorities and ruled that the tests had been contaminated. The Daily Telegraph in Sydney says the swimmers tested positive for trimetazidine, a heart medication, at a training camp held months before the start of the 2020 Tokyo Games, which were delayed until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Friday’s Games
NBA Play-In Tournament
Miami 112 Chicago 91
New Orleans 105 Sacramento 98
MLB
Interleague
Toronto 5 San Diego 1
Cincinnati 7 L.A. Angels 1
Philadelphia 7 Chicago White Sox 0
Boston 8 Pittsburgh 1
Houston 5 Washington 3
Atlanta 8 Texas 3
Seattle at Colorado, ppd.
American League
N.Y. Yankees 5 Tampa Bay 3
Cleveland 10 Oakland 2
Kansas City 9 Baltimore 4
Detroit 5 Minnesota 4
National League
Chicago Cubs 8 Miami 3
Milwaukee 2 St. Louis 1 (10 innings)
N.Y. Mets 9 L.A. Dodgers 4
Arizona 17 San Francisco 1
Saturday’s Games (All times Eastern)
NHL Playoffs First Round
N.Y. Islanders at Carolina, 5 p.m. (Start of best-of-seven series)
Toronto at Boston, 8 p.m. (Start of best-of-seven series)
PWHL
Toronto at Montreal, 1 p.m.
Boston at New York, 3:30 p.m.
Minnesota at Ottawa, 7 p.m.
NBA Playoffs First Round
Orlando at Cleveland, 1 p.m. (Start of best-of-seven series)
Phoenix at Minnesota, 3:30 p.m. (Start of best-of-seven series)
Philadelphia at New York, 6 p.m. (Start of best-of-seven series)
L.A. Lakers at Denver, 8:30 p.m. (Start of best-of-seven series)
MLB
Interleague
Boston (Crawford 0-0) at Pittsburgh (Keller 2-1), 4:05 p.m.
Houston (Blanco 2-0) at Washington (Williams 2-0), 4:05 p.m.
Chicago White Sox (Soroka 0-2) at Philadelphia (Wheeler 0-3), 6:05 p.m.
L.A. Angels (Sandoval 1-2) at Cincinnati (Ashcraft 2-1), 6:40 p.m.
Texas (Eovaldi 1-1) at Atlanta (Morton 1-0), 7:20 p.m.
Seattle (Castillo 0-4) at Colorado (Freeland 0-3), 8:10 p.m.
Toronto (Berríos 3-0) at San Diego (TBD), 8:40 p.m.
American League
Tampa Bay (Eflin 1-2) at N.Y. Yankees (Cortes 1-1), 1:05 p.m.
Detroit (Olson 0-2) at Minnesota (Ober 0-1), 2:10 p.m.
Oakland (Wood 0-1) at Cleveland (Allen 2-0), 6:10 p.m.
Baltimore (Burnes 2-0) at Kansas City (Ragans 0-1), 7:10 p.m.
National League
Milwaukee (Hall 0-1) at St. Louis (Mikolas 1-2), 2:15 p.m.
Miami (TBD) at Chicago Cubs (Assad 2-0), 2:20 p.m., 1st game
Miami (TBD) at Chicago Cubs (Imanaga 2-0), 7:40 p.m., 2nd game
Arizona (Gallen 3-0) at San Francisco (Harrison 2-1), 4:05 p.m.
N.Y. Mets (Buttó 0-0) at L.A. Dodgers (Stone 1-1), 4:05 p.m.
MLS
Orlando City at CF Montréal, 7:30 p.m.
New England at Toronto FC, 7:30 p.m.
Cincinnati at Atlanta, 7:30 p.m.
Portland at Columbus, 7:30 p.m.
Nashville at Miami, 7:30 p.m.
D.C. United at New York City FC, 7:30 p.m.
Real Salt Lake at Chicago, 8:30 p.m.
Austin FC at Houston, 8:30 p.m.
St Louis City at Sporting Kansas City, 8:30 p.m.
FC Dallas at Colorado, 9:30 p.m.
Vancouver at Seattle, 10:30 p.m.
New York at Los Angeles FC, 10:30 p.m.