This date in sports history: Feb. 3
1944 — Syd Howe of the Detroit Red Wings scores six goals in a 12-6 victory over the New York Rangers. Howe is the first player to score six goals in a game since Cy Denneny of the Ottawa Senators on Feb. 7, 1921.
1956 — Austria’s Toni Sailer wins the men’s downhill race to become first Olympic skier to sweep three alpine events.
1976 — Washington’s Dave Bing, making his final NBA All-Star game apperance, is voted MVP as the East wins 123-109 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia. Bing has 16 points and four assists, and Bob McAdoo finishes with an East-best 22 points.
1980 — Larry Bird hits the first 3-point shot in the history of the NBA All-Star Game. Bird’s 3 came in overtime as the East team outscores the West, 16-8, in the overtime for a 144-136 win.
1982 — Skier Steve Mahre, twin brother of overall champion Phil Mahre, becomes the first American man to win a gold medal in Olympic or World Championship competition when he edges Sweden’s Ingemar Stenmark by 0.51 seconds in the giant slalom.
1990 — Bill Shoemaker, the world’s winningest jockey, finishes fourth on Patchy Groundfog in his final ride at Santa Anita. The 58-year-old Shoemaker finishes his 40-year career with $123,375,524 in earnings, a record 8,833 wins, 6,136 seconds and 4,987 thirds in 40,350 starts.
1998 — Dino Ciccarelli becomes the ninth NHL player to score 600 goals when he scores a power-play goal with 5 minutes, 9 seconds remaining in the third period to give the Florida Panthers a 1-1 tie against the Detroit Red Wings.
2000 — World Wrestling Federation mastermind Vince McMahon unveils his latest creation: the XFL, a new pro football league.
2001 — One year later, the XFL muscles its way onto the national sports scene with its first two games. With exuberant cheerleaders and trash-talking players sharing center stage, the Las Vegas Outlaws beat the New York/New Jersey Hitmen, 19-0, and the Orlando Rage beat the Chicago Enforcers, 33-29, before a crowd of 35,603 in Orlando.
2002 — Adam Vinatieri’s 48-yard field goal as time expires gives Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots their first Super Bowl title with a 20-17 win over the two-touchdown favorite St. Louis Rams.
2006 — Martin Brodeur becomes the third goaltender in NHL history to reach 100 shutouts as New Jersey blanks Carolina, 3-0. Brodeur joins Terry Sawchuk (115) and George Hainsworth (102).
2008 — Eli Manning and the New York Giants end New England’s unbeaten season and pull off one of the greatest upsets in Super Bowl history. Manning throws a 13-yard touchdown pass to Plaxico Burress with 35 seconds left to beat the Patriots, 17-14.
2013 — The Baltimore Ravens survive a power outage at the Super Bowl to edge the San Francisco 49ers, 34-31. Jacoby Jones returns the second-half kickoff 108 yards, a Super Bowl record, to give Baltimore a 28-6 lead. Moments later, lights lining the Superdome fade. When action resumes 34 minutes later, Colin Kaepernick and the 49ers score 17 consecutive points, getting as close as 31-29. Baltimore stops San Francisco on fourth-and-goal from the 5 with under 2 minutes left when Kaepernick’s pass sails beyond Michael Crabtree in the end zone.
2017 — Tara VanDerveer becomes the second NCAA women’s coach to reach 1,000 career victories, when No. 8 Stanford beats USC, 58-42, to give the Hall of Famer a major milestone in front of the home crowd at Maples Pavilion.
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