CONCORD, N.C. – The most grueling Hell Tour schedule in history just got even hotter.

Five races have been added to the DIRTcar Summer Nationals late model schedule, making a new total of 35 race dates across nine states from June 15 to Aug. 21.

Four races have also been added to the Summit Modified Nationals calendar in their 11th season of competition for a total of 34 dates – the most in tour history.

The new dates begin with a first-ever visit to the Knox County (Ill.) Fair Raceway for both the late models and UMP Modifieds on Tuesday, July 6. The following night, July 7, both tours return to the Belle-Clair Speedway in Belleville, Ill., for the first time since 2016.

Week No. 6 has also been filled-in with a trio of races, starting with a return to the Randolph County Raceway in Moberly, Mo., on Wednesday, July 21 for both tours’ second-ever appearances at the high-banked half-mile.

A visit to Springfield Raceway the following night will set the stage for a late model-only show on Friday, July 23, a $10,000-to-win affair at Lake Ozark Speedway in Eldon, Mo. – marking the third visit in tour history.

The two tours then meet back up at Clarksville Speedway Saturday night before heading out to Kentucky on Sunday, July 25 for a debut at the three-tenths-mile Richmond Raceway in Kentucky.

The lone stop in the Bluegrass State marks nine different states the tours will visit this year.

The grind kicks off for both tours at Indiana’s Brownstown Speedway on Tuesday, June 15.

Artemi Panarin returned to Rangers practice Wednesday, more than two weeks after he took a personal leave of absence from the team.

Panarin will not play Thursday in Boston. Coach David Quinn said the Rangers want to get Panarin a few more skates in to put him in the best position to succeed.

"He's all in, ready to go," Quinn said. "He's been off the ice for a while, so we've got to get him game ready."

The coach said Panarin is doing well mentally, and has been in contact with teammates throughout the last two weeks. "Nobody's happier than he is that he's back," Quinn said.

Panarin took an indefinite leave on Feb. 22 after his former Kontinental Hockey League coach, Andrei Nazarov, told a Russian newspaper that Panarin got into a physical altercation with a woman in Latvia 10 years ago.

The Rangers offered steadfast support for Panarin, a runner-up for league MVP last season. In a statement, the team said Panarin was "shaken and concerned" by the allegations and called Nazarov's claims "clearly an intimidation tactic being used against [Panarin] for being outspoken on recent political events."

Panarin has recently been critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the economic climate in his native country.

The KHL told ESPN it had "not been aware of or received a complaint in relation to any incident involving Artemi Panarin in December 2011." The league said it would have investigated any complaint.

The NHL was monitoring the situation, but since there has been no corroborating evidence to Nazarov's claim, the league hasn't taken action.

ESPN spoke with two of Panarin's teammates from the 2011 Vityaz team, who both said they didn't recall any incident with Panarin like the one Nazarov described.

Rangers teammate Ryan Lindgren is glad to have him back.

"He's such a positive, energetic guy," he said. "It was great seeing him, great having him back in the locker room. He's excited to be back and we're definitely excited to have him back."

National Hockey League games will return to ESPN starting with the 2021-22 season.

ESPN and the NHL announced a seven-year deal on Wednesday, returning hockey to ESPN for the first time since 2004. Included will be 25 regular-season games on ESPN or ABC, early-round playoff series and one conference final each year, four Stanley Cup Final series on ABC and more than 1,000 games per season streaming on ESPN+. ESPN+ and Hulu will be home to 75 ESPN-produced exclusive telecasts per season.

The deal also includes opening-night games, the NHL All-Star Game and Skills Challenge and other special events. The NHL's out-of-market streaming package (NHL.TV) is also moving to ESPN+ as part of its subscription offerings.

International rights in Latin America, the Caribbean and parts of Europe are also part of the deal, as are extensive highlight rights for ESPN's digital platforms.

Executives from the NHL and The Walt Disney Company underscored the platform-rich offerings as a key part of the agreement.

"This agreement clearly underscores The Walt Disney Company's leadership in the sports media landscape and serves as a blueprint for sports deals in the future," Jimmy Pitaro, the chairman of ESPN and sports content for Disney, said in a statement. "We know the power of the NHL and are thrilled to welcome it back as a significant new pillar across our platforms, and we look forward to connecting more deeply and directly with some of the sports world's most passionate fans."

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman also lauded the deal. "Not only will this groundbreaking, seven-year deal enable the NHL to benefit from the incomparable power, reach and influence of The Walt Disney Company and ABC/ESPN, it sets a new standard in delivering our game to the most passionate and tech-savvy fans in sports in the ways they now demand and on the platforms they use," he said in a statement.

ESPN+ currently has more than 12 million subscribers. Hulu has 39.4 million.

The first NHL game on ESPN appeared on Dec. 19, 1979 -- a little more than three months after the network premiered. ESPN continued to produce NHL content for the next nine years. After a hiatus, the network became the home for the NHL from 1992 to 2004.

Since then, all games have aired on NBC or its cable properties.

NEW YORK -- The NHL has suspended Nashville Predators defenseman Dante Fabbro two games for elbowing Carolina Hurricanes forward Brock McGinn.

The league's Department of Player Safety announced the suspension Wednesday after a morning hearing for the rookie defenseman. Fabbro will forfeit $15,948.28 based on his average annual salary, with the money going to the Players' Emergency Assistance Fund.

Fabbro hit McGinn's head with his left elbow at 13:47 of the second period Tuesday night, and Fabbro left his feet finishing the hit. He was given a 2-minute minor penalty for elbowing, and Carolina won the game 3-2 in overtime.

The Predators already are without a pair of defensemen, with captain Roman Josi and Ryan Ellis both on injured reserve.

The Josi transaction was made Tuesday, after he took a high stick from Dallas' Denis Gurianov 2:46 into the third period that drew blood earlier in the week. Josi stayed in the game and scored the winning goal Sunday in the shootout victory in Dallas, but missed Tuesday's overtime loss in Carolina.

Josi became the fourth Nashville player on injured reserve within the past week.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Doug Ghim wasn't supposed to be here this week.

In any other year, the University of Texas product and former Walker Cupper likely would’ve been back on the Korn Ferry Tour, fighting to regain a return trip to the PGA Tour. But when the Tour announced last year that there would be no promotion or relegation between its tours because of the coronavirus pandemic, Ghim, who struggled last season as a rookie, found himself with another chance.

He’s since taken advantage, and this week he’ll make his debut in The Players Championship.

“It’s silly to say in any way that COVID was good for me, but looking at it in a positive light, I was very fortunate that the Tour decided to reward guys who gained their status the year before and allow them to keep their status going into the year,” Ghim told GolfChannel.com last week at Bay Hill. “That gave me time in the summer to try and figure things out.”

Ghim, a 24-year-old Chicago-area native who starred at both the junior and amateur levels, earned his way to pro golf’s biggest stage two years ago after sinking a huge par putt on his final hole at the Korn Ferry Tour Championship. However, he made just five of 16 cuts during the Tour’s pandemic-shortened season, finishing with only two top-25s and 102 FedExCup points, which ranked him No. 184, which normally would've sent him to the KFT Finals.

“It was tough,” Ghim said. “Every opportunity seemed like a big deal, and I didn’t play as well as I would’ve like to.”

When the season was paused, Ghim was reeling with five missed cuts in six events. Once he realized the Tour would essentially hit the reset button in the fall, he got to work back home in Las Vegas, diving in with swing coach Drew Steckel, putting instructor Paul Vizanko at Scotty Cameron and new mental coach Jared Tendler.

He also made a few equipment switches, returning to a setup more similar to what he used during his amateur career, which included a runner-up finish at the 2017 U.S. Amateur, winning the 2018 Ben Hogan Award, being named a four-time All-American with the Longhorns and earning low-amateur honors at the 2018 Masters Tournament.

“I learned that I didn’t really have to do anything that I didn’t feel like I wasn’t already capable of, I just needed to get a little better at what I do well,” Ghim said. “It was a long quarantine, but I got a lot of work done and at the end of it I felt pretty much where I was in college. Obviously not to be insensitive to the people who are being affected still, but there was a silver lining in there for me.”

With a re-tooled game and renewed confidence, Ghim opened the new season last fall with a T-14 finish at the Safeway Open and notched three more top-25s in his next four starts. After sharing fifth at The American Express in January, Ghim had risen near the top of the category reserved for KFT grads, and his FedExCup ranking was good enough to get him into bigger events, including the Genesis Invitational at Riviera, site of his runner-up finish to Doc Redman in 2017. Though Ghim missed the cut that week, he did play two rounds alongside his former Texas teammate Scottie Scheffler.

Ghim said he was both motivated and disheartened last year seeing his peers play well, including Scheffler, who won the Tour’s Rookie of the Year award last season.

“I’ve always been somewhat of a slow-starter,” Ghim said. “I was used to seeing Scottie play well in the beginning and then trying to catch up, as a junior and in college. … Experience is an important thing, and he’s got more of it than I do at this point in time. I look forward to being able to gain some of that this year and hopefully mirror a lot of what he did his first year out here and I’ll be kind of in the same boat very soon.”

No longer sweating out alternate lists, Ghim, currently 65^th in the FedExCup, can now rely on a consistent schedule to build momentum and get better. He found something in his putting alignment last month and has started to drive it better after cracking his driver at Riviera. The next step for Ghim is to start contending.

Last week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, Ghim fired a third-round 65 to get into the weekend mix before slipping with a final-round 81 and tying for 34^th. It wasn’t the finish he’d envisioned when he began the day, but he’ll get an immediate chance to bounce back in the Tour’s flagship event at TPC Sawgrass.

“I’m accumulating a lot of good experiences,” Ghim said. “Frankly, I’m having the rookie season that I expected to have last year a year later.”

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Tyler McCumber wasn’t born when his father, Mark, won the 1988 Players Championship, so it was no big surprise that another “local” victory stood out when McCumber was asked his favorite memory from the PGA Tour’s flagship event.

“When Funk won [2005]. It was so cool to watch someone who lived here win,” McCumber said Wednesday at TPC Sawgrass, where he is making his first start at The Players.

McCumber estimates he started attending the event when he was 5 years old and says he’s played the Stadium Course “about 1,000 times,” but this week’s start has been a long time coming.

McCumber decided four years ago that he wouldn’t attend the event until he qualified, which makes this week so special.

“Being here with my family is something I haven’t experienced yet,” McCumber said.

Born and raised in Ponte Vedra Beach, McCumber now lives in Colorado, but he still considers The Players his hometown event and the one tournament he dreamed about winning growing up.

“Winning The Players, to me, being a hometown event and something you take a lot of pride in it means a ton,” he said.

The Milan court of appeals this week released details about a sentence against Brazilian forward Robinho, saying he "belittled" and "brutally humiliated" the woman he sexually assaulted in 2013.

In December, the appeals court ruled to uphold the nine-year prison sentence of Robinho that was initially handed down in 2017 for his involvement in a gang rape.

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The appeal court also ruled that Robinho and his friend Ricardo Falco, who was also found guilty, tried to mislead investigators from the start by giving a false version of events which the two had previously agreed on.

The decision was made by a group of three judges, Francesca Vitale (who presided over the trial), Paola Di Lorenzo and Chiara Nobili.

The incident occurred in Milan while Robinho was on the books of Serie A side AC Milan.

The victim was celebrating her 23rd birthday on the night of the attack.

The former Real Madrid and Manchester City forward now has 45 days to appeal against the latest ruling to the Supreme Court of Cassation, his last legal option in Italy.

In October of 2020, Robinho rejoined boyhood club Santos, but saw his contract terminated due to public outcry just four days later.

In that time, one of Santos' sponsors ended their link with the Brazilian club "out of respect for women."

Cristiano Ronaldo's role in Porto's decisive goal which saw Juventus knocked out of the Champions League round-of-16 stage for a second consecutive season was described as "the worst" by TV pundit Fabio Capello.

Having been facing 10 men since Mehdi Taremi's dismissal on 54 minutes, Juve had levelled the tie and were five minutes away from a penalty shootout before Sergio Oliveira's free-kick rolled into the net after Ronaldo had turned his back and lifted his leg in a weak attempt to block the effort.

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Juve were given a lifeline when Federico Chiesa scored an away goal in the first leg which meant, despite Porto's dominance, Andrea Pirlo's side only trailed 2-1. But they were behind in Turin after just 19 minutes when Merih Demiral gave away a penalty with a clumsy challenge.

"The first goal in the first game was a gift," former Real Madrid and Juve boss Capello told Sky Sport Italia. "Great carelessness in the second. Certain goals can't be conceded.

"The penalty kick tonight is another gift. Too naive from Demiral, you can't go looking for the interception, it's a serious mistake.

"But this is the worst: Cristiano Ronaldo jumping and turning in the wall. Whoever is in the wall can't be afraid of being hit. It's an unforgivable mistake that has no excuses."

Despite going behind on the night, Chiesa had equalised for Juve shortly before Taremi's sending off and added another on 63 minutes to level the tie.

Juve had several chances to win the match in normal time but failed to capitalise on their dominance and Oliveira's goal proved decisive as, despite Adrien Rabiot immediately putting the Bianconeri back in front on the night to level the tie at 4-4, Porto qualified via the away goals rule.

The result means Juve, who last won the Champions League in 1996, have not reached a semifinal since 2017 and, since Ronaldo's arrival three years ago, have been eliminated by Ajax, Lyon and now Porto.

Liverpool progressed to the Champions League quarterfinals as goals from Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane earned them a 2-0 victory over RB Leipzig at the Puskas Arena in Budapest on Wednesday to complete a 4-0 aggregate success.

Despite a torrid Premier League run of six defeats in their last seven matches, Liverpool produced an impressive display in the first leg which they also won 2-0. Both ties were played in the Hungarian capital due to coronavirus travel restrictions, with Liverpool the designated home side for the return.

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In a tentative start, both sides created chances early on with Mane going close for Liverpool before Leipzig's Dani Olmo forced a smart save from Alisson.

After a goalless first half, Leipzig grew in confidence as they knew one goal back would change the whole complexion of the tie and Alexander Sorloth headed against the bar.

But, on 70 minutes, Salah struck the game's opening goal as he kept his composure to slot the ball into the corner past Leipzig goalkeeper Peter Gulacsi.

Just like in the first leg, the Egypt forward scored the game's opener, with Mane adding the second minutes later -- on this occasion finishing from close range on 74 minutes after a lovely ball from Divock Origi.

Liverpool qualify for the last eight for the third time in the past four seasons, having reached the final on the two previous occasions.