BOSTON — Al Horford had 24 points in his return from a two-game absence because of a concussion and the Boston Celtics hung on to beat the Toronto Raptors 95-94 on Sunday for their 12th straight victory. Boston (12-2) was playing without Kyrie Irving after he took an inadvertent elbow to the face from teammate…

LANCE HORNBY BOSTON – Calling this weekend a sweep would imply the Maple Leafs used a broom on the Bruins. But it required heavy labour in one of the most demanding 48 hours the Leafs will likely encounter this year. On the heels of a late tie and overtime home win Friday, Toronto came into…

MONTREAL — The Montreal Canadiens are steadily erasing a bad start to the season and they don’t want to stop. Max Pacioretty scored 3:08 into overtime and minor league call-up Charlie Lindgren turned in another strong game in goal as the Canadiens downed the Buffalo Sabres 2-1 on Saturday night. After going 2-7-1 in the…

Hope Solo told a Portuguese newspaper that former FIFA President Sepp Blatter sexually assaulted her at the Ballon d’Or awards ceremony in 2013. In an interview published Friday in the newspaper Expresso, Solo said Blatter grabbed her rear end shortly before the two appeared onstage at the annual soccer awards event. A representative for Solo…

At first glance, it sounds like a line from that old Sesame Street song. Take a look at the top scorers in the NHL and you’ll see mostly familiar names: Stamkos, Kucherov, Gaudreau, Kopitar, Tarasenko, Matthews and … Couturier? As Big Bird might sing, one of these things is certainly not like the others. Typecast…

The World Anti-Doping Agency, the global regulator of drugs in sports, has obtained a digital trove of data that holds the results of drug tests run on Russian athletes dating back several years and that is considered a final piece of the puzzle revealing the contours of a doping scheme that Russia conducted across multiple…