National Sports

CHAMPAGNEY, France — Two Tour de France rookies stole the show on the first mountain stage, with Dylan Teuns of Belgium winning Stage 6 and Giulio Ciccone of Italy taking the overall race lead on Thursday.

MONTREAL — The Montreal Canadiens have signed Finnish forwards Joel Armia and Artturi Lehkonen to two-year contracts. Armia's contract has an average annual value of US$2.6 million, while Lehkonen's has an AAV of $2.4 million.

WINNIPEG — Brandon Alexander hasn't forgotten the criticism heaped on the Blue Bombers' defence the past few seasons, but he's glad this year has started off different.

NEW YORK — Hamilton's Kia Nurse has been named as one of the starting guards for the WNBA All-Star Game. Nurse is averaging 16 points, 2.1 assists, 2.7 rebounds and one steal over 15 games, all starts, for the New York Liberty this season.

TORONTO — IndyCar rookie Santino Ferrucci will be looking to repeat the success he found eight years ago when he raced on the Honda Indy Toronto track for the first time. He'll have to follow the rules this time though.

WIMBLEDON, England — Hours before her Wimbledon semifinal, Serena Williams spent some time deep in thought and arrived at a couple of conclusions.

TORONTO — The Toronto Raptors have officially signed forward Stanley Johnson and guard Terence Davis. The team did not release terms of the contracts. The Athletic last week reported Johnson's contract to be a two-year deal worth US$7.5 million.

Canadian Julia (The Jewel) Budd says she is fighting for her legacy when she defends her Bellator featherweight title for a third time Friday night against unbeaten Israeli (Big Bad) Olga Rubin.

Canada has been handed a marquee matchup to open the FIFA U-17 World Cup — against host Brazil on Oct. 26. The young Canadian men were matched with Brazil, New Zealand and Angola in Group A at Thursday's draw at FIFA headquarters in Zurich.

YORK, Pa. — "Robot umpires" have arrived. The independent Atlantic League became the first American professional baseball league to let a computer call balls and strikes Wednesday night at its All-Star Game.