BRIEFLY LATEST NHL CASUALTY IS ALL-STAR GAME.

Byline: - Daily News Staff and Wire Services

In another sign the NHL season is slipping away, the league on Wednesday canceled its All-Star Game because of the lockout.

No regular-season games have been played since the season was scheduled to begin Oct. 13, and NHL arenas have been given the go-ahead to release dates on a 45-day rolling basis. With the All-Star Game now off the schedule, the next announcement could be the cancellation of the entire season.

``To call off something that's a lot of fun for the fans to enjoy is a shame,'' nine-time All-Star Jeremy Roenick of the Philadelphia Flyers told the Associated Press.

--Former Nashville Predators center Sergei Zholtok died in his native Latvia of an apparent heart ailment. He was 31. Hewas was playing for Riga 2000 this year during the NHL lockout.

BASKETBALL: UCLA's Ike Williams is at the center of a police investigation involving an alleged assault of a men's volleyball player at a party in Westwood over the weekend, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.

Williams, a walk-on who played one minute last season, was not arrested but was detained for questioning Sunday night. Coach Ben Howland is aware of the situation, but no decision has been made about discipline.

- Brian Dohn

--Missouri's basketball team was placed on three years' probation for NCAA recruiting violations but avoided a ban on postseason play. The program lost one scholarship next year and two in 2006-07 and limited all basketball coaches to recruiting on campus until November 2005.

TENNIS: Andy Roddick surged into the third round of the Paris Masters with a 6-2, 6-2 rout of Sargis Sargsian in his first match since late September. The top-seeded Roddick raised his record this year to a tour- leading 71-14.

HORSE RACING: Belmont Stakes winner Birdstone was retired from racing after chipping a bone in his left front ankle during the Breeders' Cup Classic.

GOLF: Mianne Bagger, a 37-year-old Dane, became the first transsexual golfer to qualify for the Ladies European Tour. Bagger shot 5-over-par 77 to tie for ninth place after four rounds in qualifying school at the Riva dei Tessali golf club in Taranto, Italy. The Ladies European Tour changed its rules this year to eliminate the ``female at birth'' in its membership policy.

FIGURE SKATING: Sasha Cohen will miss her second Grand Prix series event because of a lingering back injuring, withdrawing from next week's Cup of China.