NFL
Sunday afternoon’s divisional playoff game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Kansas City Chiefs has been moved to 8:20 p.m. EDT because of Winter Storm Jupiter, which is expected to coat the city in a layer of ice as it sets in over the Great Plains. The NFL made the announcement on Friday, citing “public safety concerns.”
The original afternoon kickoff time could have made it difficult for spectators to make it to the stadium. According to the Weather Channel, the storm, expected to hit the Kansas City metro area later Friday and continue through Sunday morning, is predicted to “to make any untreated roads, streets, sidewalks and parking lots [in the region] hazardous.”
NHL
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The Nashville Predators have acquired Cody McLeod from Colorado in exchange for forward Felix Girard.
McLeod, 32, has played in 28 games for Colorado this season and has recorded one goal and 52 penalty minutes. He has 1,359 penalty minutes, 66 goals and 51 games in 659 career games over 10 NHL seasons.
His eight fighting majors this season are the fourth-highest total in the league. McLeod had a league-high 12 fighting majors in 2015-16.
Girard, 22, has three goals and five assists in 35 games with the American Hockey League’s Milwaukee Admirals this season. The Predators and Avalanche are facing each other in Colorado on Saturday.
Skiing
WENGEN, Switzerland – Swiss skier Niels Hintermann won a World Cup Alpine combined race beset by heavy snowfall on Friday.
Twenty-third in the morning slalom, the 21-year-old Hintermann completed his downhill run as falling snow in the afternoon made the course slower for the higher-ranked racers.
Hintermann, who had zero top-20 finishes in his World Cup career, finished 0.26 ahead of Maxence Muzaton of France, who never previously had a top-10 finish.
WENGEN, Switzerland – A high point of the World Cup season, the classic downhill at Wengen, will be without its defending champion Aksel Lund Svindal on Saturday.
The race itself could also be a casualty if the forecast 45 centimeters (17 inches) of snow dumps on the course.
Svindal said on Friday he will skip the storied Lauberhorn race — the oldest, longest and quirkiest downhill on the World Cup circuit — to get treatment for a knee injury, he wrote in an Instagram post.
Svindal finally won in Wengen last January at his 10th career attempt, but his standout season ended one week later when he tore his right ACL in a crash in Kitzbuehel.
On his comeback in December, Svindal returned to form with top-three finishes in races in Val d’Isere, France, and Val Gardena, Italy.
ALTENMARKT-ZAUCHENSEE, Austria – Lindsey Vonn will have to ski in a training run and a downhill race within hours of each other to make her World Cup comeback on Saturday.
Organizers rescheduled Friday’s training for 0815 GMT the next morning, two hours prior to the race. The start gate will be lowered, which strips the Kalberloch course of its trademark steep pitch from the initial start.
Vonn, a four-time overall champion, and American teammate Julia Mancuso were planning to make their World Cup comebacks this weekend after extensive injury layoffs.
Associated Press
