COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The goalie for Canada’s gold medallist women’s Olympic hockey team made her debut in the men’s Southern Professional Hockey League.

Shannon Szabados had 27 saves, although her Columbus Cottonmouths lost 4-3 to the Knoxville Ice Bears on Saturday. The 27-year-old goaltender joined the team last week.

This was her first game since the Olympic women’s final February 20. She did, however, practice with the NHL’s Edmonton Oilers on March 5 when they were short a backup goaltender.

No woman has played in an NHL regular-season game. Goaltender Manon Rheaume became the first to play in an exhibition game with Tampa Bay in 1992. Canadian women’s hockey star Hayley Wickenheiser played in men’s leagues in Finland and Sweden.

Nepal impressive in 80-run win over Hong Kong

CHITTAGONG, Bangladesh (AP) — Gyanendra Malla and captain Paras Khadka produced useful knocks yesterday as Nepal completed an impressive 80-run win over Hong Kong in a World Twenty20 Group A qualifying game.

Malla slammed 48 and Khadka made 41 as Nepal scored 149-8 after being put in to bat by an in-form Hong Kong team which had pulled off a last-ball win over Zimbabwe in a warm-up game.

Hong Kong crumbled to 69 all out in 17 overs with left-arm spinners Shakti Gauchan and Basant Regmi bagging three wickets each.

In an earlier match that was seen as the showpiece game of Group A, Bangladesh scored a nine-wicket win over Afghanistan.

One team from this group will join India, Pakistan, Australia and the West Indies in Group Two of the Super 10 stage.

Pennetta routs Radwanska for Indian Wells crown

INDIAN WELLS, United States (AFP) — Italy’s Flavia Pennetta routed world number three Agnieszka Radwanska 6-2, 6-1 yester day to win the Indian Wells WTA crown.

Pennetta, 32, claimed the biggest title of her career, needing just one hour and 13 minutes to blow past Poland’s second-seeded Radwanska, who was hobbled by a left leg injury.

Pennetta’s victims in the $12 million (8.6 million euros) combined WTA and ATP Masters tournament included world number two and top seed Li Na of China as well as former US Open champion Samantha Stosur.

Pennetta claimed the 10th WTA title of her career and her first since Marbella in 2010. Since then Pennetta had battled through a dismal 2012 season in which she struggled with both a back and wrist injury, dropping as low as 166th in the world.

She was considering retirement before reaching the semi-finals of the US Open last year, but Pennetta, who in 2009 became the first Italian to reach the world top 10, will now make it back into the top 15 in the world.

Pennetta saved both break points she faced in the match and broke Radwanska in the fifth and seventh games of the opening set, pocketing the first frame with a backhand winner down the line.

After holding serve to open the second set, Radwanska called for the trainer and had supportive tape applied around her left knee.

Betancur first Colombian cyclist to win Paris-Nice race

NICE, France (AFP) — Carlos Betancur became the first Colombian cyclist to win the Paris-Nice race yesterday following the eighth and final stage.

French champion Arthur Vichot won the stage, raced along the celebrated Promenade des Anglais, which saw several riders, including Portugal’s road race world champion Rui Costa, lose their chance of victory in the stage in a pile-up 300 metres from the finish.

Costa was able to remount and cycle gingerly to the finishing line of the ‘Race to the Sun’ to finish second overall.

Betancur, 24, won his first stage race at World Tour level, although he finished an impressive fifth in last year’s Tour of Italy.

Betancur, who is just one of several classy riders from Colombia such as Nairo Qunitana and Rigoberto Uran who are competing at the moment, said he had never imagined in his wildest dreams that he would win a race as prestigious as this one.

Betancur, who rides for the French AG2R team, kept a keen eye on Costa throughout the final stage as the Portuguese rider was only 14 seconds behind him in the overall standings.

The only anxious moment he had vis a vis his main rival was when Costa tried to steal a march on him on the Col d’Eze, the final climb of the stage, but he and his team — the first French team to have the winner of the race since Swiss rider Tony Rominger won in 1991 — reeled him in without any great difficulty.