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The NHL will play outdoor games in Florida for the first time next season, hosting matchups in Miami and Tampa.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman told ESPN that next season’s Winter Classic will feature the Florida Panthers against the New York Rangers on Jan. 2 at LoanDepot Park, home of Major League Baseball’s Miami Marlins. Bettman also said next season’s Stadium Series game will be played between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Boston Bruins on Feb. 1 at Raymond James Stadium, home of the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

“We’ve done 42 games all over North America. We haven’t had one in Florida, and our teams have been there for three decades,” Bettman said. “This is a golden age of hockey in Florida when you look at fan engagement, when you look at big events like All-Star [Games], when look at Stanley Cups between the Lightning and the Panthers and when you look at the growth of hockey at all levels of the game.”

This will be the first time the Panthers participate in an outdoor game and the Lightning’s second appearance (2022 Stadium Series vs. Predators in Nashville). With the Columbus Blue Jackets playing in this year’s Stadium Series game, it leaves the Utah Hockey Club as the only NHL team that has neither played nor is scheduled to play in an outdoor game.

Going to Florida will be the league’s latest chapter in hosting an outdoor game in a nontraditional hockey market.

The NHL held an outdoor game at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas in 1991, but unconventional venues became more frequent with the introduction of the Stadium Series in 2014, with Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles; Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California; the Cotton Bowl in Dallas; and Carter-Finley Stadium at NC State hosting games.

NHL president of content and events Steve Mayer said LoanDepot Park is like T-Mobile Park, home of MLB’s Seattle Mariners, where the NHL held its 2024 Winter Classic. Mayer said both stadiums have a roof that can cover the playing surface that helps with building ice under controlled conditions. The idea will be to open the roof before the game for a dramatic entrance.

Mayer said Tampa and Raymond James Stadium, an outdoor venue with no roof in an area with high humidity, provides a different challenge. The NHL is working with a Dallas-based company to create what is essentially a mini-warehouse where they will build the ice under controlled conditions.

“Then at the appropriate time, which could be hours before the game, we’ll dismantle that structure and underneath we’ll reveal, ‘Voila, here is our rink. Let’s play some hockey,'” Mayer said. “That’s how we’re going to have to do it at Raymond James. The actual weather itself, unlike Dallas and Los Angeles, will not allow us to build ice because of the humidity and the temperatures during the day.”

Regarding alternate venues in both South Florida and Tampa, Bettman said Hard Rock Stadium wasn’t an option because of the Orange Bowl, which will be played around the same time as the Winter Classic. He said Tropicana Field, which was the Lightning’s first home back when it was the ThunderDome, wasn’t considered before it was damaged by Hurricane Milton because it was an indoor structure.

Keith Wachtel, the president of NHL Business, said the league examines several items when it comes to what teams can host an outdoor game. He said the league takes details such as potential venues, how a team is performing in the standings and how much support they could receive from fans in a market.

Wachtel said hosting the games six weeks apart means that Florida is “going to be the center of the hockey universe.”

Markets such as South Florida and Tampa Bay were part of the NHL’s expansion into the Sun Belt in the early 1990s. The Panthers reached the Stanley Cup Final in 1996 while the Lightning won their first Cup in 2004. The past decade, however, has seen both franchises take a more commanding role in the sport, with the Lightning winning back-to-back Stanley Cups in 2020 and 2021 and the Panthers claiming their first title last season.

Both cities have also hosted the NHL All-Star Game during this Florida hockey surge. Tampa hosted the game for the second time in 2018, and South Florida welcomed its second All-Star Game in 2023.

Mayer said as All-Star Weekend in Tampa was ending, the league saw a billboard from the Tampa Bay Sports Commission that read, “Next time, let’s go outside the box,” with a rendering of an outdoor game at Raymond James Stadium.

“That was their plea to us as we left town to come back,” Mayer said. “We’ve been focused on this for many, many years. The engineering of this took time. Then the building of this to where we could do two games in Florida? It just all came together so perfectly.”

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Yanks’ Gil (lat strain) shut down at least 6 weeks

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Yanks' Gil (lat strain) shut down at least 6 weeks

TAMPA, Fla. — New York Yankees starting pitcher Luis Gil has been diagnosed with a high-grade lat strain in his right shoulder and will be out at least a couple of months.

Manager Aaron Boone did not disclose a specific timeline, but he said before Monday’s spring training game against Pittsburgh that Gil won’t throw for at least six weeks, after which he would need to fully build back up again.

Gil’s injury likely means Marcus Stroman — who entered camp seemingly as the odd man out in the rotation but also said he had no interest in going to the bullpen — will open the season as the team’s fifth starter. The Yankees also have veteran starting pitcher Carlos Carrasco in camp as a non-roster invitee, in addition to young starters Will Warren and Brent Headrick on their 40-man roster.

“You know these things are going to unfortunately come and pop up,” Boone said. “They do at different times of the year. Hopefully, overall, you can stay fairly healthy, but unfortunately these things are inevitable, and that’s why … every team tries to build in some depth. We feel like we’re in a good spot with who we have. It’s part of it.”

Gil, the reigning American League Rookie of the Year, experienced shoulder tightness during a bullpen session on Friday and underwent an MRI over the weekend that revealed the strain, though Boone said he still needs to undergo further examination. The hope is that Gil, 26, would return at some point in the first half, but that is unknown at the moment. Fellow starter Clarke Schmidt had a similar lat strain last year and missed about three and a half months, from late May to early September.

For optimism, the Yankees can look to last spring. Their ace, Gerrit Cole, missed the first two and a half months with nerve irritation and edema in his pitching elbow, but the rest of the rotation stepped up in his absence, posting a 3.47 ERA through the end of June and ultimately playing a big part in the Yankees winning the AL East. Now Cole, Stroman, Schmidt, Carlos Rodon and newcomer Max Fried must step up in similar fashion.

“It sucks, man; I don’t even know what to say to put it into words,” Stroman said after his Grapefruit League start against the Atlanta Braves on Sunday, which saw him allow four runs and record eight outs. “He was a huge part of this team last year. Incredible, incredible season, and we’re going to need him. We’re going to need him at some point in order to go where we want.”

Gil spent most of the 2022 and 2023 seasons recovering from Tommy John surgery, then won a spot in the rotation the follow spring and put together a sensational 2024, going 15-7 with a 3.50 ERA in 151⅔ innings. Gil walked 12.1% of the hitters he faced, by far the most among those with at least 150 innings, but he also compiled 171 strikeouts.

Most notable, though, was a significant workload bump for a pitcher who hadn’t previously reached 110 innings in pro ball and wound up pitching for a team that reached the World Series. Boone said it was “tough to say” whether that innings jump triggered injury.

“It’s pitching,” Boone added. “Different things crop up. It’s why we put so much value in what these guys do in their throwing programs and when they start, and we’re methodical in how they go about it. I feel like we’ve started to turn a corner there, but it’s certainly one of the things that is troubling in our game.”

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Reports: Brewers add depth with lefty Quintana

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Reports: Brewers add depth with lefty Quintana

Veteran left-handed pitcher Jose Quintana is joining the Milwaukee Brewers on a one-year, $4.25 million deal with $1 million in potential bonuses, according to multiple reports.

Quintana, 36, is coming off a 2024 season in which he went 10-10 with a 3.75 ERA in 31 starts for the New York Mets. He struck out 135 and walked 63 in 170⅓ innings. Over his past six regular-season starts, Quintana gave up four runs — three earned — in 36 1/3 innings.

He started the deciding game of New York’s NL Wild Card Series matchup with the Brewers and pitched six shutout innings in the Mets’ 4-2 victory, though he received no decision. Quintana had a total of three postseason starts, allowing six runs — five earned — over 14 1/3 innings.

Quintana now will compete for a spot in a Brewers rotation that returns right-handers Freddy Peralta, Tobias Myers and Aaron Civale. The two-time defending NL Central champions also added left-hander Nestor Cortes in a trade that sent two-time NL reliever of the year Devin Williams to the New York Yankees.

The Brewers could use some rotation depth as two-time All-Star Brandon Woodruff and Robert Gasser come back from injuries. Woodruff missed all of 2024 while recovering from shoulder surgery, and he won’t be ready for the start of the season. Gasser, who is recovering from Tommy John surgery, isn’t expected to be available until late in the season.

Milwaukee got more bad news Monday night when left-hander Aaron Ashby, a candidate for a rotation spot, left his start against the Cincinnati Reds with an injury. Murphy told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Ashby appeared to have an oblique issue and would undergo an MRI.

When he makes his Brewers debut, Quintana will have pitched for every team in the NL Central. He was with the Chicago Cubs from 2017-20 and split the 2022 season between the Pittsburgh Pirates and St. Louis Cardinals.

Quintana owns a 102-103 record and 3.74 ERA in 359 career appearances, including 333 starts. He’s also had stints with the Chicago White Sox (2012-17), Los Angeles Angels (2021), San Francisco Giants (2021) and Mets (2023-24). He was selected to the All-Star Game in 2016.

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Nats, Orioles settle lengthy dispute over TV rights

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Nats, Orioles settle lengthy dispute over TV rights

NEW YORK — The Nationals and Orioles ended a legal fight over television rights dating to 2012 when Major League Baseball announced Monday that Washington will be freed from its deal with the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network after the upcoming season.

MLB said Nationals games will be broadcast by MASN in 2025 under a new, one-year contract.

“After this term, the Nationals will be free to explore alternatives for their television rights for the 2026 season and beyond,” MLB said. “As part of the settlement, all disputes related to past media rights between the Nationals, Orioles and MASN have been resolved, and all litigation will be dismissed.”

MASN was established in March 2005 after the Montreal Expos relocated to Washington and became the Nationals, moving into what had been Baltimore’s exclusive broadcast territory since 1972. The Orioles were given a supermajority partnership interest in MASN, starting at 90%, and Washington made a $75 million payment to the network for an initial 10%.

The agreement called for the Nationals’ equity to increase 1% annually, starting after the 2009 season, with a cap of 33%. The network’s rights payments to each team were set at $20 million apiece in 2005 and 2006, rising to $25 million in 2007, with $1 million annual increases through 2011.

After that, the network was to pay fair market value with disputes over the Nationals’ rights to be resolved by MLB’s Revenue Sharing Definitions Committee, a group of three MLB club officials. The RSDC started to hear the case in 2012 and lawsuits over the decision were filed two years later in New York Supreme Court.

Litigation over the 2012-16 fees resulted in a 2019 RSDC decision that valued them at $296.8 million. After arguments that went to the New York Court of Appeals, the sides agreed to a settlement in June 2023.

A 2023 RSDC decision held Washington was owed about $304.1 million by MASN for 2017-21, after an adjustment downward of almost $45.5 million for the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. That decision was confirmed in New York Supreme Court.

Another RSDC decision in December had awarded the Nationals approximately $320.5 million for 2022-26. The rights fee was set at about $72.8 million each for 2022 and ’23 — matching 2021 — and dropped to approximately $58.3 million annually from 2024-26, citing deteriorating economics of regional sports networks.

A court hearing on that decision had been scheduled for March 13.

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