Feb. 9
1912 - The U.S. Tennis Association amends the rules for the men’s singles championship play. The defending champion is required to play through the tournament instead of waiting for the tournament to produce a challenger.
1940 - Joe Louis beats Arturo Godoy with a split decision to defend his world heavyweight title at Madison Square Garden.
1966 - The NHL doubles in size - from six to 12 teams - when the Owners-Governors award franchises to Los Angeles, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and St. Louis.
1986 - Detroit’s Isiah Thomas scores 30 points and hands out 10 assists to lead the East to a 139-132 win in the All-Star Game in Dallas.
1988 - Mario Lemieux of the Pittsburgh Penguins scores a record six points - three goals and three assists - to lead the Wales Conference to a 6-5 victory over the Campbell Conference in the NHL All-Star game.
1991 - Terry Norris knocks down Sugar Ray Leonard twice and beats him up over 12 rounds in Leonard’s Madison Square Garden debut and final fight. Norris wins a unanimous decision.
1992 - Magic Johnson, playing for the first time since announcing his retirement on Nov. 7, scores a game-high 25 points and hands out nine assists to lead the West to a 153-113 win over the East in the NBA All-Star Game at the Orlando Arena.
1997 - Glen Rice breaks two scoring records in an MVP performance and Michael Jordan has the first triple-double in NBA All-Star game history. The East rallies to beat the West 132-120. Rice, who finishes with 26 points, sets records with 20 in the third quarter and 24 in the second half.
2003 - Kevin Garnett, the MVP, scores nine of his 37 points in the second overtime as the West beat the East 155-145 in the first double overtime game in NBA All-Star history.
2009 - Lindsey Vonn wins the downhill for her second gold at the World Championships in Val D’isere, France. Vonn becomes the second American woman to win two golds at a worlds. Andrea Mead Lawrence won the slalom and giant slalom at the 1952 Oslo Olympics, which doubled as the worlds.
2011 - The Cleveland Cavaliers’ losing streak reaches 26, matching the 1976-77 NFL Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ record for consecutive incompetence with a 103-94 loss to the Detroit Pistons.
2014 - Missouri All-American defensive end Michael Sam comes out to the nation. In interviews with ESPN, The New York Times and Outsports, Sam says he came out to all his teammates and coaches at Missouri in August.
2015 - San Antonio rallies from a 14-point fourth-quarter deficit and gets an 18-foot baseline jumper from Marco Belinelli with 2.1 seconds left to give coach Greg Popovich 1,000 wins with a 95-93 victory at Indiana.
2015 - Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis scores 23 points and Breanna Stewart adds 22 to help No. 2 UConn beat top-ranked South Carolina 87-62. This is the 54th meeting between the top two women’s teams in the nation, and the 20th time that the Huskies are involved in that matchup. They are 17-3 in those games.
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