Voracek’s glove on the ice and wasn’t going to let his opponent pick it up easily.Crosby pushed the glove away with his stick and reignited a melee in a good Patrik Berglund Jersey Womens , old-fashioned Pittsburgh-Philadelphia playoff game that featured three fights, way more scrums and 158 penalty minutes. When Crosby was asked afterward why he did it, the Penguins captain responded: ”I don’t like them. I don’t like any guy on their team.”Those were the days.”It was awesome,” then-Penguins general manager Ray Shero said. ”If you look at it, it was wild. It really was. You had villains on both sides and people that hated each other.”That was six years ago. Is a rivalry still a rivalry in a league that has made a concerted effort against over-the-top hits and where fighting is truly a rare sight?NHL executive Colin Campbell once famously said the league sells hate, and at no time is hate more widely bought, sold, distributed and celebrated than during the Stanley Cup playoffs. The NHL’s divisional playoff format was brought back specifically to ignite old rivalries and create new ones, which has been a successful venture even if hate looks different than it did in the days of the ”Broad Street Bullies.” Playoff rivalries are no longer about dropping the gloves or laying out bone-crushing hits.Teams now play fewer regular-season games against each other and are made up of more skilled players and fewer enforcers. Still, thanks to how tight the league is and the volcanic snowball effect of what a playoff series does to hockey players and coaches, rivalries might have a different look but they have plenty of smoldering intensity.”Playing against teams with high stakes when there’s a lot on the line – win or go home – that’s how you have rivalries,” veteran New Jersey Devils center Brian Boyle said. ”When it’s us or it’s them, that’s how you find those rivalries. The same guys for two weeks, I think that’s how you build them.”The first round in the Eastern Conference this year already has two old-school rivalries with the Penguins and Flyers meeting in the playoffs for the first time since their epic 2012 showdown, and Boston facing Toronto for the first time since 2013. In the West, Minnesota faces Winnipeg in the first playoff series between the two division rivals, which could heat up fast.”The best thing about most of them are is the proximity to where they live, the close ones, but I think it needs a good playoff (series) against that individual team to create the rivalry full hand,” Wild coach Bruce Boudreau said. ”Until you play seven games in 14 nights where you learn to hate the opposition.”Playoff series in back-to-back years made the Penguins and Washington dislike each other plenty, and they’d meet again in the second round if they advance this year. Nashville and Anaheim developed a nontraditional rivalry with intense series the past two playoffs, making that a potentially combustible Western Conference final.When Predators players think about those Ducks series and other tense ones over the past several years, they know there haven’t been a lot of fights – and they’re not alone. The past four playoffs have included a total of 39 fights. There were 46 fights in the 1978 postseason alone and an incredible 85 in the 1988 playoffs.”You get the odd scrum that turns into a fight and stuff like that, but there’s not too much fighting left,” Nashville defenseman Ryan Ellis said. ”You probably see the amount of blocked shots go up in the playoffs, the amount of hits – the little things that may not be on the stat sheet is kind of what I guess gets your team through the playoffs. It’s just little things like that that really is the playoff intensity.”Boyle, who has blocked 113 shots in 106 career playoff games, has seen more fights in blowout games deep into a series than at other times because there’s too much at stake to take a retaliatory penalty.”A lot of times you see a lot of other guys turn the other cheek in a playoff series http://www.officialhockeyjetsshop.com/a … ers-jersey ,” Boyle said. ”You don’t want something like that to make a difference in a series.”Making a difference is more about scoring a big goal than leveling a big hit or punching someone in the face. Look at the Penguins’ and Flyers’ rosters now and the likes of Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Phil Kessel, Voracek and Claude Giroux are far more likely to beat someone with a slick shot than their fists.”I think the game has changed in how it’s being played out there,” Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan said. ”I think personnel has changed. But I think rivalries are rivalries. There’s always a heightened emotion associated with the games.”So much so that retired player and former Penguins coach Ed Olczyk said of Penguins-Flyers, ”It only takes one player, one comment from somebody, where all bets are off and that gasoline tank will be ignited fairly quickly.” Crosby recalls more fights between the teams in the past – he was involved in two six years ago in the game he swatted Voracek’s glove away – but doesn’t want to downplay the intensity of this rivalry.”You never know what can happen,” Crosby said. ”I feel like both teams are always kind of at their best, and there’s always a little bit extra in those games.”Capitals defenseman John Carlson said he thinks playoff rivalries have gotten worse more because of what players can get away with, the physical toll games take and the memories of the nasty things that happen.”Those things last forever, really,” Carlson said. ”I can remember every single playoff series we’ve played in and this guy made a dirty hit in this game, this guy slashed me for no reason – two-handed me in the back of the legs – in this game, just stuff like that.”Peter Laviolette, who coached the Flyers in that 2012 series and has been with the Predators in emotional series against Anaheim and Chicago, knows that’s just how the league wanted it. Where is the fun if everyone likes each other?”I don’t think there’s ever been a love lost between Toronto and Boston or Montreal and Boston or Philadelphia and Pittsburgh,” Laviolette said. ”They wanted those rivalries. They wanted to make sure that those were the matchups in the playoffs. It’s been great hockey.”— WORLD CUPNIZHNY NOVGOROD, Russia (AP) With the country’s most one-sided World Cup victory, England advanced to the last 16 with a game by spare.Harry Kane scored a hat trick in Sunday’s 6-1 rout of Panama, giving England its biggest victory margin at the World Cup in its highest-scoring game since 1966.That previous high-scoring affair turned out well, too, with England beating Germany 4-2 to win its only World Cup title.Four years ago, England failed to win a match at the World Cup and was eliminated in the group stage. On Sunday, England was taking on a weaker team: A Panama side making its World Cup debut. The loss eliminated Panama and Tunisia, while putting Belgium into the round of 16.Kane’s three goals moved him into the lead with five at this year’s tournament, one more than Cristiano Ronaldo and Romelu Lukaku after two games.KAZAN, Russia (AP) – Radamel Falcao’s first World Cup goal led Colombia to a 3-0 victory over Poland on Sunday and kept the team in the running for a spot in the knockout round.Falcao had been expected to lead the team at the last World Cup in Brazil Patrik Laine Jersey , but he injured his knee ahead of the tournament and missed Colombia’s run to the quarterfinals. Healthy again, the Monaco striker scored with the outside of his foot in the 70th minute after a superb pass from playmaker Juan Quintero in the back of the defense.Poland, which has two losses, was eliminated.Yerry Mina scored the first goal in the 40th and Juan Cuadrado completed the win in the 75th.GOLFCROMWELL, Conn. (AP) – Bubba Watson overcame a six-stroke deficit to win his third Travelers Championship title, shooting a 7-under 63 on Sunday for a three-stroke victory at TPC River Highlands.Watson became the first three-time winner on the PGA Tour this season, and pulled within one of Billy Casper’s tournament record of four victories.Watson finished at 17-under 263. Third-round leader Paul Casey, Stewart Cink, Beau Hossler and J.B. Holmes tied for second. Casey shot 72, Cink 62, Hossler 66 and Holmes 67.Watson came from six back to win the 2010 event for his first tour title, and beat Casey in a playoff in 2015.ROGERS, Ark. (AP) – Japanese teenager Nasa Hataoka ran away with the NW Arkansas Championship on Sunday for her first PGA Tour titleThe 19-year-old Hataoka won by six strokes, closing with an 8-under 63 at Pinnacle Country Club for a tournament-record 21-under 192 total. She broke the mark of 18 under set last year by So Yeon Ryu.Hataoka won twice late last year on the Japan LPGA and has finished in the top 10 in five of her last six LPGA Tour stars, including a playoff loss last month in the Kingsmill Championship. Hataoka began the round tied with Minjee Lee for the lead.Austin Ernst shot a 65 to finish second.MADISON, Wis. (AP) – Scott McCarron won the American Family Insurance Championship on Sunday, closing with an 8-under 64 for a one-stroke victory over hometown player Jerry Kelly.The 52-year-old McCarron birdied Nos. 14-16 and parred the final two to hold on for his first victory of the season and seventh in three years on the PGA Tour Champions. He finished at 15-under 201 at University Ridge. Kelly shot 65, also parring the final two holes.AUTO RACINGSONOMA, Calif. (AP) – Martin Truex Jr. won the NASCAR Cup Series race in Sonoma on Sunday, using a clever pit strategy to cruise to his second career victory on the challenging road course.Truex easily held off Kevin Harvick for his second win in three weeks and his third victory of the season in his Furniture Row Racing Toyota.The defending Cup Series champion waited to pit until the 81st lap, a full eight laps later than Harvick. Truex and his crew chief, Cole Pearn, appeared to use a bit of trickery on the decision, bluffing an earlier move to the pits and enticing Harvick into pit lane instead. The decision left fresher tires on Truex’s car down the stretch and allowed him to pass Harvick for the lead around the final hairpin turn with 20 laps to go.ELKHART LAKE, Wis. (AP) – Pole sitter Josef Newgarden dominated the IndyCar race at Road America on Sunday, leading 53 of 55 laps for his third victory of the season.The defending series champion crossed the finish line with a comfortable 3.38-second cushion over second-place finisher Ryan Hunter-Reay. Points leader Scott Dixon finished third, part of the three-car pack that separated from the field with about 13 laps to go in the road race.The victory completed an impressive weekend for the Team Penske driver at the 14-turn, 222-mile-long track Vladimir Sobotka Jersey Womens , where Newgarden’s No. 1 Chevy registered the top speed in in practice. He returned to the podium following a five-race stretch finishing no higher than eighth, dropping him from first to fifth in the driver standings.LE CASTELLET, France (AP) – Lewis Hamilton capitalized on a mistake by rival Sebastian Vettel to enjoy a wire-to-wire victory at the French Grand Prix on Sunday and retake the lead in the Formula One title race.Starting third behind Hamilton and Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas, Vettel tried to use his faster set of tires to make a good start. But the German’s lunge on the inside of the first corner crunched his Ferrari into the back of Bottas, damaging both cars and sending them into the pits for repairs. Vettel emerged with a new front wing and the entire field to fight through, and even though he made quick work of the slower cars he had to settle for a fifth-place finish.Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Kimi Raikkonen in his Ferrari crossed second and third to complete the podium at the Paul Ricard Circuit. Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo was fourth.BEAVER DAM, Wis. (AP) – Sprint car driver Jason Johnson died following a crash at Beaver Dam Raceway in Wisconsin, race officials said Sunday. He was 41.Johnson was injured during a World of Outlaws race Saturday night at the 1/3-mile-long dirt oval, the series said. It said the driver from Eunice, Louisiana, crashed on lap 18 of a 40-lap race while racing for the lead and was taken to a hospital.The series posted a message Sunday morning on Twitter saying that Johnson had died.TENNISHALLE, Germany (AP) – Borna Coric defeated defending champion Roger Federer 7-6 (6), 3-6, 6-2 to win the Gerry Weber Open final on Sunday.The 21-year-old Croat saved three of the four break points he faced and took his second match point to end Federer’s 20-match winning streak on grass for his second career title.Coric, who defeated second-seeded Alexander Zverev in the first round, saved two set points in the first set tiebreaker.Federer, who skipped the entire clay-court season for the second year in a row, had been going for his 99th title, one week after taking his 18th grass-court title in Stuttgart. It would have been a record-extending 10th title from his 12th final in Halle.LONDON (AP) – Marin Cilic saved a match point on his way to defeating Novak Djokovic 5-7, 7-6 (4), 6-3 on Sunday as he claimed a second Queen’s Club title.The top-seeded Croat first won the Wimbledon warmup event in 2012, but was the runner-up in 2013 and also lost to Feliciano Lopez in last year’s final. Having saved six break points, Djokovic struck with the first chance of his own to clinch a draining 67-minute first set, before a reversal of fortunes in the second.The 12-time Grand Slam champion wasted an early opportunity to break before Cilic saved a match point at 4-5 and then won six points from 4-1 down in the tiebreaker to level the match. Cilic produced a stunning forehand passing shot on his way to breaking for a 5-3 lead in the decider and then delivered a nerveless service game to close out the match in just under three hours.HOCKEYThe Washington Capitals have re-signed John Carlson to a $64 million, eight-year contract that allows the Stanley Cup champions to keep the do-it-all defenseman.Carlson will count $8 million against the salary cap through the 2026-27 season. General manager Brian MacLellan announced the deal Sunday.The 28-year-old who has made the Washington area his home and wanted to stay if there was a fit. The Capitals got the cap space necessary to re-sign Carlson by trading veteran defenseman Brooks Orpik and backup goaltender Philipp Grubauer on Friday night at the NHL draft.Carlson outperformed his last deal that paid him just under $4 million a season and was at his best in a contract year. He led all defensemen with 68 points in the regular season and 20 in the playoffs to help Washington win the Metropolitan Division and then the Stanley Cup. The contract makes Carlson the second-highest-paid player on the Capitals behind Alex Ovechkin.