TORONTO (Reuters) – The Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens faced off against each other for the 717th time on Wednesday and as always the bad blood flowed.

It was the same when the two teams met 17 days earlier on Montreal ice, the nastiness no different from that witnessed in hundreds of other games in a rivalry that spans nearly 100 years.

TORONTO (Reuters) – With just five wins from their first 33 games there was certainly nothing magical about the Washington Wizards’ start to the National Basketball Association (NBA)season.

In fact, it was the type of horrific kickoff to a campaign that would have had Harry Potter thumbing through the sorcery text books searching for a winning spell as Washington disappeared to the bottom of the Eastern conference standings.

TORONTO (Reuters) – Canada’s Rebecca Marino, a rising star in women’s tennis, stepped away from the sport in search of a normal life on Wednesday, weary of battling depression and cyber-bullies.

Ranked number 38 in the world two years ago, the 22-year-old admitted she had long suffered from depression and was no longer willing to make the sacrifices necessary to reach the top.

TORONTO, Feb 20 (Reuters) – Canada’s Rebecca Marino, a rising star in women’s tennis, stepped away from the sport in search of a normal life on Wednesday, weary of battling depression and cyber-bullies.

Ranked number 38 in the world two years ago, the 22-year-old admitted she had long suffered from depression and was no longer willing to make the sacrifices necessary to reach the top.

TORONTO (Reuters) – The Toronto Maple Leafs showed no mercy to their injury-ravaged rivals on Saturday in claiming a 3-0 victory over the Ottawa Senators in the ‘Battle of Ontario’.

While every team in the lockout-shortened season have had to deal with injuries, few, if any, have been hit as hard as Ottawa.

Feb 14 (Reuters) – Ice hockey power brokers are facing off in meetings this week that not only could decide if the National Hockey League (NHL) takes part in the 2014 Sochi Winter Games but the way the International Olympic Committee (IOC) does business.

While the NHL is widely expected to return to the Olympic lodge and free players to compete in Russia, the talks that began on Thursday and will continue through Friday at the NHL’s New York headquarters could be more far reaching.

TORONTO (Reuters) – It should have been an almost perfect night for Maple Leafs fans on Monday after a 5-2 win over Philadelphia extended Toronto’s unbeaten run to four games but celebrations at the Air Canada Centre were tempered by an injury to netminder James Reimer.

In a lockout-shortened season where injuries may prove critical, the loss of Reimer for an extended period would likely come as a crippling blow to the playoff hopes of Toronto, whose win over the Flyers (5-7-1) was just their second at home this season.

TORONTO (Reuters) – Italian forward Andrea Bargnani has seldom experienced La Dolce Vita during seven enigmatic seasons with the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) Toronto Raptors.

Despite being the first European taken with the number one pick in an NBA draft and a five-year $50 million extension in 2009, the sweet life has eluded the seven-foot Roman who is losing fan support with play that is often as bewildering as a Federico Fellini film.

TORONTO (Reuters) – Kevin Garnett recorded a season-high 27 points as the Boston Celtics continued to prosper in the absence of Rajon Rondo by holding off the Toronto Raptors 99-95 to secure a fifth successive win on Wednesday.

The Celtics, who were expected to fade from the post-season picture when Rondo went down with a season-ending knee injury, have instead gone on a storming run, with all five of their victories coming since the All-Star guard was hurt.

By Steve Keating

(Reuters) – Gary Bettman will mark 20 years as commissioner of the National Hockey League (NHL) on Friday and on YouTube fans have posted a 97 second appraisal of his performance.

It is an unflattering montage chronicling two often stormy decades of Bettman awarding the Stanley Cup to the winning team, backed by a soundtrack of rancorous booing and occasional chants of “Bettman sucks.”