Toronto Move Gains Approval

The Toronto Maple Leafs will join traditional rivals Montreal and Boston in the NHL’s Northeast Division beginning next season.

The league’s Board of Governors approved Toronto’s move from the Central Division on Tuesday.

Under the new plan, the Columbus Blue Jackets will join the Central Division instead of the Northeast when they enter the league in 2000. Nashville’s expansion team, which begins play next year, was earlier assigned to the Central.

The Maple Leafs will join the Canadiens, Bruins, Buffalo Sabres and Ottawa Senators in the Northeast.

The realignment means the Leafs will spend significantly less time on road trips. This season, Toronto will log almost 48,000 travel miles. Next season that total will be pared to about 30,000.

The board also OK’d minor changes in scheduling.

For the 1998-1999 and 1999-2000 seasons, each team in the Eastern Conference will play the other teams in its division five times; Western Conference teams will play each divisional opponent six times.

Each team will play the teams in the other divisions within its conference four times. Each team will play either one or two games against all teams outside its conference.

Spano indictment likely Former

New York Islanders owner John Spano will be indicted on a federal bank fraud charge in Boston that could send him to prison for about eight years, people familiar with the case told Bloomberg News.

The move by prosecutors to charge Spano with making fraudulent claims to Fleet Bank to obtain an $80 million loan he used to buy the team comes a day after Spano backed out of a plea bargain with three states on fraud charges stemming from his aborted purchase of the team.

If Spano had agreed to the settlement negotiated by his then-lead counsel Nicholas Gravante Jr., the Dallas businessman would have spent between 33 and 63 months in prison. Instead, he faces a sentence of between 78 and 97 months in prison on the charge in Massachusetts and could face as much as 30 years in prison and fines if prosecutors in Texas and New York pursue more serious charges.