FEBRUARY 17 – On This Day

1818 Baron Karl von Drais de Sauerbrun patents ”draisine” (early bicycle)
1882 1st Test Cricket match played at Sydney Cricket Ground
1927 Toronto Maple Leafs beat the New York Americans, 4-1 in the team’s first game since changing name from ”St. Patricks”
1928 American brothers, Jennison and John Heaton fight out the top placings in the cresta (now known as skeleton) at the St. Moritz Winter Olympics; Jennison takes the gold by 1.0s
1928 Johan Grøttumsbråten leads a Norwegian sweep of the medals in the 18k cross country at the St. Moritz Winter Olympics; he also wins the Nordic combined gold the following day
1931 1st telecast of a sporting event in Japan (baseball)
1939 Katwijk soccer team forms in the Netherlands
1952 Montreal Canadiens center Elmer Lach picks up his 354th career assist in a 3-2 loss at the NY Rangers to become the NHL’s all-time assists leader; passes Bill Cowley’s mark
1952 Trude Jochum-Beiser of Austria wins the downhill gold medal at the Oslo Winter Olympics; second career gold medal after taking out the combined event at St. Moritz (1948)
1953 DSB soccer team forms in Eindhoven (now PSV Eindhoven), Netherlands
1955 Ice Dance Championship at Vienna Austria won by J Westwood/Demmy GRB
1955 Ladies Figure Skating Championship in Vienna won by Tenley Albright US
1955 Mike Souchak sets PGA 72-hole record of 257 (not broken until 2001)
1956 Ice Dance Championship at Garmisch won by Pamela Weight/P Thomas GRB
1963 Japanese runner Toru Terasawa runs a world record marathon (2:15:15.8) at the Beppu Marathon on the island of Kyushu, Japan
1964 101st member elected to Baseball Hall of Fame, Chicago WS shortstop Luke Appling
1965 US-Japan baseball relations suspended over Masanori Murakami dispute
1968 Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, Springfield, Massachusetts opens
1968 Frenchman Jean Claude-Killy completes a clean sweep of the
1968 Norwegian cross country skier Ole Ellefsæter wins 50k event at the Grenoble Winter Olympics; 2nd gold medal of the Games (4 x 10k relay)
1968 Soviet Union wins its 3rd Olympic ice hockey gold medal in Grenoble; clinch title with final round, 5-0 win over Canada; Soviet LW Anatoli Firsov top scores with 16 points
1971 England regains cricket Ashes with a 2-0 series win
1973 Rodney Redmond scores 107 on debut v Pakistan, his only Test Cricket
1974 49 die in stampede for seats at soccer match, Cairo, Egypt
1976 NZ scores their 1st innings win in Test Cricket, v India
1980 22nd Daytona 500: Buddy Baker wins ahead of Bobby Allison and Neil Bonnett
1980 Sapporo downhill silver medallist Annemarie Moser-Pröll of Austria goes one better with gold at the Lake Placid Winter Olympics
1980 Swedish cross-country skier Thomas Wassberg earns first of 4 career Olympic gold medals in the 15k at Lake Placid; wins by 0.01s from Finland’s Juha Mieto; closest margin of victory ever in Olympic cross-country skiing
1982 Commencement of Sri Lanka’s 1st Test Cricket match, v England
1984 Biathletes Eirik Kvalfoss of Norway and West German Peter Angerer finish 2nd & 3rd respectively in the relay at the Sarajevo Winter Olympics; both have complete sets of medals from biathlon events at the Games
1985 Dutch speed skater Hein Vergeer becomes World Allround champion
1985 Panamanian jockey Laffit Pincay Jr.is third to ride 6,000 winners; wins aboard Doria’s Delight in the 5th race at Santa Anita Park
1991 US male Figure Skating championship won by Todd Eldredge
1991 33rd Daytona 500: Ernie Irvan, driving for Morgan-McClure Motorsports coasts to win after challengers crash on finals laps
1993 Mark Foster swims world record 50m free style (21.60 sec)
1993 Hartford right wing Pat Verbeek scores his 300th career NHL goal and adds his 300th career assist in a 5-3 Whalers’ home loss to the Buffalo Sabres
1996 1st full ODI for the Netherlands, v NZ, cricket World Cup Nolan Clarke makes ODI debut for Netherlands at age 47
1998 USA Women’s Ice Hockey Team beats Canada and wins the first Olympic Gold medal
2002 44th Daytona 500: Ward Burton’s win first for Dodge since Richard Petty’s victory in the 1974 race
2008 50th Daytona 500: Ryan Newman wins shootout going into the final turn from Tony Stewart, and the Busch brothers, Kurt and Kyle
2012 Approximately 70 ancient Olympic artifacts are stolen from the Archaeological Museum of Greece
2013 62nd NBA All-Star Game, Toyota Centre, Houston, TX: West beats East, 143-138; MVP: Chris Paul, LA Clippers, G
2013 Jess Cameron with 75 and Elise Perry 3-27 lead Australia to 114 run win over West Indies in the Women’s Cricket World Cup Final in Bombay, India
2014 Belarusian biathlete Darya Domracheva wins her 3rd gold medal of the Sochi Winter Olympics in the mass start; also wins individual and pursuit gold
2014 American pair Meryl Davis and Charlie White win the first Olympic gold medal for the US in ice dance at the Sochi Winter Games
2014 Belarus takes the aerials double at the Sochi Winter Olympics when Anton Kushnir wins the men’s event; Alla Tsuper claims the women’s section
2018 Czech skier Ester Ledecká wins super-G gold medal at Pyeongchang Winter Olympics; later wins parallel giant slalom snowboarding to be first female to win gold in different sports at a single Games
2018 Britain’s Lizzy Yarnold wins her 2nd consecutive Olympic women’s skeleton gold medal in Pyeongchang; also wins event in Sochi (2014)
2018 Russian biathlete Anastasiya Kuzmina wins her 3rd career Olympic gold medal in women’s 12.5k mass start in Pyeongchang; 7.5k sprint champion in Vancouver (2010) and Sochi (2014)
2018 Japanese defending champion Yuzuru Hanyu retains his Olympic men’s figure skating title by winning the gold medal at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics; first wins gold at Sochi (2014)
2018 10k freestyle cross country champion Ragnhild Haga and 30k classical winner Marit Bjørgen win their 2nd Olympic gold medal in Pyeongchang as part of Norway’s 4 x 5k relay team
2018 Polish ski jumper Kamil Stoch retains his Olympic individual large hill title (Sochi 2014) with gold in Pyeongchang; beats normal hill winner Andreas Wellinger of Germany by 3.4m
2019 NBA All Star Game, Spectrum Centre, Charlotte, NC: Team LeBron beats Team Giannis, 178-164; MVP: Kevin Durant GS Warriors, F
2020 62nd Daytona 500: Denny Hamlin wins second straight title by 0.014 seconds over Ryan Blaney on the second restart in overtime; his third Daytona victory