Philadelphia Flyers win first game of the season, 2-1 over New York Rangers

 Wayne Simmonds and Jakub Voracek scored to help the Philadelphia Flyers win their first game of the season, 2-1 over the New York Rangers on Thursday night.

The Flyers not only avoided their first 0-4 start in team history, they beat the Rangers for the first time in two seasons. The Rangers defeated the Flyers all six games last season, including a win in the Winter Classic.
Both teams are last in the Atlantic Division at 1-3.

The Flyers needed the good news after they learned All-Star forward Scott Hartnell is expected to miss four to eight weeks because of a broken left foot.

Forward Brayden Schenn also served a one-game suspension for charging New Jersey defenseman Anton Volchenkov. Philadelphia also played without forward Danny Briere (broken left wrist).

But the Flyers had enough to beat Henrik Lundqvist and the Rangers. Taylor Pyatt scored his third of the season for New York.

Source: Time Warner Cable to pay around $7-billion to broadcast Los Angeles Dodgers games

Time Warner Cable Inc. has won a contract to carry Los Angeles Dodgers games for at least the next two decades starting in 2014, snatching the games away from Fox Sports after this year’s baseball season ends, according to Discount Jerseys Wholesale a person familiar with the matter.

The deal has not yet been finalized, although it is to be announced within days, said the person, who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on Tuesday on condition of anonymity.

The Los Angeles Times earlier reported the nation’s second-largest cable operator will pay around $7-billion (all currency U.S.) to carry the games.

A second person familiar with the situation said that Fox Sports, a division of News Corp., had been prepared to pay more than $6-billion for a 25-year deal to keep the Dodgers on its Prime Ticket regional sports network. But it lost the bidding war after its exclusive bargaining period ended in November. The second person was also not authorized to speak publicly.

The contract marks the second major sports rights deal in three years for Time Warner Cable, which bought the rights to Los Angeles nhl jersey wholesale Lakers games in 2011 and launched regional sports networks covering them last year.

After paying an estimated $3-billion for the Lakers rights for 20 years, Time Warner Cable eked out higher fees from other TV distributors in Los Angeles, including DirecTV. The cable operator has said it is bidding for long-term sports carriage agreements to give itself certainty about rising sports costs.