CONCORD, N.C. – Hendrick Motorsports officials confirmed late Wednesday that Nationwide Insurance will end its sponsorship of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series organization at the end of the season.

Nationwide is one of the anchor sponsors of Alex Bowman’s No. 88 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 and has been with the team since 2014, when the company backed Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the Spetember race at Richmond (Va.) Raceway.

Adam Stern of the Sports Business Journal first reported the move.

“Since 2015, Nationwide has had the pleasure of being the primary sponsor of the No. 88 team — first with Dale Earnhardt Jr. as the driver and then with Alex Bowman. In that time, the platform has played a valuable role in building the Nationwide brand, sharing with NASCAR fans our noble purpose of protecting what matters most to our members and raising money and awareness for Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio,” said Nationwide in a statement.

“As Nationwide’s business needs evolve, we are adjusting our marketing resources to ensure that we are aligning to those new business priorities. With that in mind, we have informed Hendrick Motorsports of our decision to step away from our sponsorship of the 88 team at the end of the year,” the statement continued. “We have not made this decision lightly, given our 20-plus year involvement in NASCAR and our deep appreciation for Rick Hendrick, Alex Bowman, Hendrick Motorsports, and the millions of NASCAR fans we have engaged with over the years. Nationwide will continue to leverage our sponsorship for the rest of 2019 and have many special activations planned. In 2020, we will host partners at select NASCAR races and continue our relationship with Dale Earnhardt Jr.

“We thank Mr. Hendrick for a wonderful five years and wish him and the entire Hendrick Motorsports organization the very best in their future endeavors.”

Team owner Rick Hendrick was quick to note that Bowman is signed with Hendrick Motorsports through the end of next year and that Bowman is a large piece of the team’s plans going forward.

“We understand the changing dynamics of business, and we’re grateful to the entire team at Nationwide for their wonderful partnership over the past five years,” said Hendrick. “Whether it’s been winning races, competing in the NASCAR playoffs or our recent on-track performance, we have accomplished so much together. Off the track, we have been just as successful, from collaborating on national advertising campaigns to supporting the important mission of Nationwide Children’s Hospital. It has been a pleasure to work with all of their people and to help drive Nationwide’s business forward.

“Alex (Bowman) is having a breakout season and showing the world just how talented he is. He’s signed through next year (2020) and will be a big part of our future,” Hendrick added. “The momentum we’re building as a sport is due in large part to NASCAR’s leadership and a unique combination of emerging personalities like Alex, established stars and the exciting shows our racing is putting on. There’s tremendous confidence in the product we have to offer our fans and partners.”

Bowman recently had a stretch of three-straight second-place finishes in Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series action and sits 10th in points more than halfway through the regular season.

Nationwide has been Bowman’s primary sponsor for 10 of the first 15 races this year.

“I owe a lot to Nationwide. They wanted me as their driver and have supported me from the beginning, which I can’t thank them enough for,” noted Bowman. “I’m proud to represent them and have a lot of appreciation for all the awesome people I’ve met and worked with. I couldn’t be more positive about my No. 88 team and what the future holds for us this year and beyond. I know we’re just scratching the surface, and I’m pumped for what’s ahead.

“We appreciate the role Nationwide has played in our success.”

CANEY, Kan. — Frontrunners continued their dominance with the Lucas Oil National Open Wheel 600 Series presented by Tel-Star Technologies on Wednesday during the opening night of Sooner 600 Week.

Frank Flud won his sixth Stock Non-Wing main event and his eighth Winged ‘A’ Class feature and Ryan Timms posted his seventh Restricted ‘A’ Class triumph during the first of five straight nights of competition.

Flud capitalized on garnering the pole position to win the Stock Non-Wing A Main. Jeffrey Newell advanced from seventh to second place with Shawn Wicker third, Chase Randall fourth and Preston Perlmutter fifth.

Flud also took advantage of the pole starting spot to earn the Winged ‘A’ Class win. Cole Roberts scored a second-place finish with Randall in third. Riley Goodno finished fourth and Wicker was fifth.

Timms posted his third straight NOW600 Series Restricted ‘A’ Class points race win after starting fourth. Ryder Laplante finished second with Conner Thomas third, Conner Long fourth and 13th-starting Kayden Cole fifth.

SWEDESBORO, N.J. — Jason McDougal held off Justin Grant to win Wednesday night’s Eastern Storm feature for the USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car Series at Bridgeport Speedway.

It was his second USAC sprint car victory.

A late-race restart saw Grant trailing McDougal on the three-eighths-mile inner oval at the massive Bridgeport facility.

“I drove it into one as deep as I could,” McDougal exclaimed. “That was the hardest I ran it into one during that whole race.  It was either going to bike or stick.”

Grant, a 14-time USAC Sprint Car feature winner himself, was eager to tally his initial Eastern Storm win as he lined up second on the final restart, ready to make his run at McDougal.

“I was going to slide him into one, but I didn’t have enough of a run,” Grant explained. “Then I thought, ‘Well, if I can hook the bottom off of two, I can at least stay tucked up alongside of him and slide him going into three. Then, I about half-spun in the middle of one and two, and that whole plan went away.”

McDougal checked out initially on the start from the outside of the front row, though polesitter Carson Short made a bid for the lead, running side by side and edging ahead momentarily on the bottom of turn three on the opening lap before McDougal used the top to drive around the outside of Short to lead the field back to the stripe.

As McDougal checked out to a 1.5-second advantage, the battled raged for second with Kevin Thomas Jr. smothering Short for second to no avail as Short slammed the door on Thomas on the 10th lap into one.

Short had enough momentum each time to guard the challenge from Thomas, but three laps later, at the same spot, Thomas kicked the door open, grooving to the bottom and edging ahead for the second position exiting turn two.

Nearing midway, the sense was that, with an open track, Thomas would be able to start reeling McDougal in. Initially, he did, cutting a half-second off the interval to knock McDougal’s lead down to nine-tenths of a second. As McDougal began to encounter the tail end of the field on lap 19, he built his lead back up to 1.3 seconds.

However, traffic was ahead with not one, not two, but three cars occupying three different grooves together as McDougal approached. Seemingly stuck, McDougal tried to split two of the lappers on separate occasions without much luck.

On lap 26, Grant and Thomas’ see-saw positioning saw Grant slide Thomas into turn three.  Thomas countered and the two drag raced into turn one with Thomas poking ahead and briefly surging ahead by a car length over McDougal between turns one and two.

That is, until McDougal zipped back past on the outside to regain the lead, albeit with the lapped cars of Brian VanMeveren and Dominick Buffalino running in tandem just ahead.

“They were racing just close enough side-by-side to where I couldn’t split them getting into the corner,” McDougal recalled. “One of them entered low enough every time, that I probably could’ve drove around the outside of him, but we would’ve crashed about halfway through the corner. Basically, I just waited until the guy on the bottom messed up enough to where I could almost push the guy at the top off the track.”

McDougal was on high alert and was able to wedge the front bumper between the two off the second turn on lap 28, cutting through the middle of both cars on the back straightaway to clear both in one fell swoop between turns three and four.

As soon as McDougal appeared to be in the clear, the yellow flag waved for the stopped car of Dustin Christie in turn four, setting up one final two-lap showdown.

However, McDougal was flawless on the resumption, spurting away uncontested to earn the $6,000 victory.

Thomas outdueled Grant in a ferocious battle in the waning laps to take second.  Grant finished third ahead of fast qualifier and new one-lap track record holder Chase Stockon, while Eastern Storm point leader C.J. Leary rounded out the top five.

To see full results, turn to the next page.

TORONTO -- Hockey Hall of Famer Eric Lindros is hoping a new campaign launched across Ontario will help amateur athletes, parents and coaches better identify the signs and symptoms of a concussion after his career was cut short by repeated blows to the head.

"You see anything that's off or someone's not feeling quite right, let's pull them (out of the game)," Lindros told The Canadian Press this week. "Let's not even question it."

The provincial government's ad campaign -- called "Hit. Stop. Sit." -- follows the passing of Rowan's Law, the first of its kind in Canada and set to take effect July 1. The law is named after Rowan Stringer, a youth rugby player who died in 2013 from second impact syndrome after suffering multiple concussions.

Rowan's Law establishes protocols for players to ensure they are taken out of action if a concussion is suspected, requires a review of awareness resources and outlines a code of conduct that sets out rules of behavior.

"We're here because Rowan pushed it," Lindros continued. "She had three concussions in six days -- that's an extreme case -- and she ended up dying. We don't want anything close to that happening."

A commercial featuring a female soccer player receiving repeated blows to the head before collapsing on the field has been shown at movie theaters across Ontario as part of the campaign. The spot made its TV debut during Monday's Game 5 of the NBA Finals.

Lindros, who was voted as one of the NHL's 100 greatest players in 2017, suffered at least five concussions during his dominant, injury-shortened career. A jarring Scott Stevens shoulder-to-head hit on Lindros in Game 7 of the 2000 Eastern Conference finals was legal at the time, and that came two years after Lindros took another devastating hit from Darius Kasparaitis.

Now a 46-year-old husband and father, Lindros said of that blow: "I got into the showers, and when you're in the visiting team's locker room, all the emblems on the towels have the home team's logo. I truly thought I got traded to Pittsburgh.

"I joke about it now. I thought I was getting a chance to play with Mario Lemieux, but that moment was bad ... it was bad."

Lindros, who doesn't want the threat of concussions to deter kids from playing sports, does favor a ban on all hits to the head across hockey -- including the NHL -- and the teaching of body contact at a much later age than the current standard.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has consistently questioned any direct link between multiple concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a brain condition associated with repeated blows to the head. CTE can only be diagnosed after death.

Lindros sighed when asked about Bettman's concussion and CTE comments.

"I don't understand how the NFL can change their tune and speak to CTE in a far different fashion now than in the past, and it not be acknowledged by our guys," he told CP. "There are some owners that really want to get ahead of this, get in front of it, support it, and maybe this will happen. I'd really like to think so."

BOSTON -- In July, Ryan O'Reilly took a call from St. Louis Blues general manager Doug Armstrong. The Blues were going to acquire O'Reilly in a blockbuster trade with Buffalo.

"I just looked at the roster, and I was so amped up about it," O'Reilly recalled. "I said, 'Let's go win the Cup.'"

O'Reilly made good on his word as the Blues won their first Stanley Cup with a 4-1 victory over the Boston Bruins in Game 7 on Wednesday night. The 28-year-old led the way with a franchise-record 23 playoff points to win the Conn Smythe Award for postseason MVP, including the opening goal Wednesday.

He's the first player since Wayne Gretzky in 1985 to score in four consecutive Stanley Cup Final games.

O'Reilly also became the first player since the New York Rangers' Mark Messier in 1994 to have a six-game points streak in a Stanley Cup Final.

But for O'Reilly, and the Blues, the journey was anything but easy. St. Louis stumbled through the first three months of the season and found itself in last place Jan. 2.

"We knew it was there, we knew we had the pieces," O'Reilly said. "But it was so educational for myself to see how tough it is and how hard we have to work and how even keel you have to be."

O'Reilly, a finalist for the Selke Trophy as the league's best defensive forward and the Lady Byng for sportsmanlike and gentlemanly conduct, was just OK for the first 18 games of the playoffs -- scoring three goals and adding eight assists.

He cracked a rib in the second-round series against Dallas. He got bumped in the ribs in the Western Conference finals against San Jose and said the injury affected him on faceoff draws.

But somehow in the Stanley Cup Final, O'Reilly turned it up to a new level, with five goals and four assists in seven games.

"There was a couple tough games," O'Reilly said of his ribs. "But once you kind of get going and the adrenaline takes over, I didn't notice it."

"I don't know what more there is to say about that guy," Blues defenseman Colton Parayko said. "He's meant so much to us ever since he joined the team."

O'Reilly joined Glenn Hall (1967-68) as the only players to win the Conn Smythe after finishing the previous season with a different team.

Coincidentally, Hall was the only Blues player to win the award before O'Reilly.

The Blues sent three three centers and two draft picks, including a 2019 first-rounder, to the Sabres to acquire O'Reilly. At the conclusion of the 2017-18 season in Buffalo, O'Reilly infamously said he "lost the love of the game multiple times" and was frustrated by the Sabres' culture of losing. Buffalo did not make the playoffs in any of his three seasons with the team.

Now, winning with the Blues, he said he was feeling much different emotions. He thought of his parents and "the hours and money they put into" his hockey career.

"I wouldn't be here, I wouldn't be in the NHL having this as a job if it wasn't for them and all this stuff that they put in," O'Reilly said. "I couldn't stop thanking them for putting their lives aside for us, for the kids, and doing whatever we needed to do. ... I can't thank them enough."

O'Reilly was also thinking of his 99-year-old grandmother, who watches him and emails him regularly from Seaforth, Ontario, where he grew up playing hockey. O'Reilly's grandma bought him multiple pairs of skates when he was a kid.

"She's one of my biggest supporters," O'Reilly said before the game. "I'm hoping I could bring the Cup to her."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

BOSTON -- Laila Anderson is only 11 years old, but she swears she has a gift: She says she can always predict who is going to score the first goal for her beloved St. Louis Blues.

Before Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final on Wednesday, Laila told her mother, Heather, it was going to be Ryan O'Reilly.

"My mom was like, 'It's not going to happen,'" Laila said.

That got her extra fired up.

"I said, 'There's two things you just said wrong,'" she recalled. "'First, you don't doubt ROR. And you don't doubt me.'"

"Mom," she said while standing on the ice at TD Garden, grinning after the Blues won their first Stanley Cup and O'Reilly -- after scoring the game's opening goal -- won the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP. "I called it."

Laila, who is battling a life-threatening autoimmune disease, isn't just a Blues superfan. She's the team's good luck charm -- so much so that the Blues flew her and her mother to Boston for Game 7, then invited them on the ice to celebrate with the team after its 4-1 victory.

Blues defenseman Colton Parayko, after hoisting the Cup himself, knelt onto the ice to meet Laila. She wiped away tears, then held on and kissed the trophy.

Winger Pat Maroon, a St. Louis native, lit up when he saw Laila in the crowd. "Laila!" he shouted. "We did it, princess!" Then the two posed for a photo.

Anderson has hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH), a disease with which only 15 other children in the world have been diagnosed. Her love of the Blues, she said, was one of the things that helped her through treatments and recovery. Many Blues players got to know Laila through team-sponsored visits to the hospital, and she formed an especially strong connection with Parayko and winger Alex Steen.

"We get to show up to the rink and be with the guys, do things like that. But you go to the hospital, and you speak with her, and you watch her go through all that stuff. I can't imagine what she's going through. What kinds of things they're putting in her body to try and help her recover," Parayko told ESPN before the Stanley Cup Final began. "She continues to have a strong attitude, a positive attitude. It's so special. We might lose a hockey game, and we're frustrated or go home really upset. But there are people out there trying to battle for their lives."

Laila's condition has limited her travel significantly. She had a bone marrow transplant in January that meant she could go only between the hospital and her house.

Then, before Game 3 of the Western Conference finals, Laila's doctors cleared her to attend. Anderson's mom broke the news in a video, which went viral. Laila then attended Games 4 and 6, and returned to the Enterprise Center when the Blues reached the Stanley Cup Final.

Then before Game 7 of the Final, Heather Anderson met with her daughter again and pressed record on her phone.

"If you could watch the game, anywhere in the world tomorrow -- anywhere in the world -- where would you watch your boys play tomorrow?" her mom asked.

"Boston," Laila said, without pause.

"What if I told you the Blues called, and they want you at the game?" her mom asked.

Laila looked at her mom: "What? How?"

"The doctor said it's OK," her mom said.

Laila could barely contain her tears.

"No he didn't, Mommy, no he didn't," she said breaking down, collapsing into her mom's shoulder.

"That video last night her mom posted was truly amazing," Maroon said Wednesday morning. "She's been an inspiration to all of us throughout the year. And Alex Steen has done a good job of bringing her and making her feel comfortable, Colton Parayko the same way, making her feel welcome to the team and the St. Louis Blues welcome her and her family. It's been truly amazing.

"She's a fighter and she's going to continue to fight. She's our inspiration. We look up to her, what she has to go through every single day. To get on that plane, I know the doctors are questionable of getting her out there because of her health and to say that she gets to come on the plane and travel out here to see us play, that's truly amazing. I'm so happy for her."

When asked if Laila gave the team any pointers, Maroon said: "She gives us enough, just the way she fights. Go out there and fight for her. What she has to go through every single day."

On the ice after Wednesday's victory, Laila -- wearing a jean jacket and a Blues championship cap -- was as popular as any St. Louis player. She did several media scrums. Her mom stood beside her the entire time.

"Being here for this, it's everything I imagined and more," Laila said. "I don't even know what to say. I love this team. I love them so much."

ESPN's Greg Wyshynski contributed to this report.

Oddsmakers are not allowing a historic payout and overall financial loss to influence their bookmaking protocol.

The St. Louis Blues are Stanley Cup champions, costing Caesars sportsbook "well into the six figures" after they became the first team in the expansion era to win the championship after owning the NHL's worst record at any point following their 30th game.

In early January, St. Louis fan Scott Berry, while visiting Las Vegas for a work conference, wagered $400 at 250-1 odds for a $100,000 payout.

"You want to offer a good future book and you want to offer a good product and fair price on all the teams," Caesars director of trading Jeff Davis told ESPN. "Those are bets you want to take. This one happens to get there. Yeah, it's going to hurt, but it doesn't change our philosophy going forward."

It goes beyond Berry's ticket. Tallying its 18 properties over four states, Caesars finished with a red number on its entire NHL future book.

"The Blues were just a popular team at the window. It was one of those weird things," Davis said. "They were a public team and the money never really stopped. It's weird. It's just a one-off."

The stars almost aligned last season. The Vegas Golden Knights nearly capped an improbable title run before losing in the Stanley Cup Final to the Washington Capitals. Bettors throughout Las Vegas held long-shot tickets in the neighborhood of 500-1 odds, given it was the local team's inaugural season. Sportsbooks did fall victim to beefy payouts when the Knights won the Pacific Division and the Western Conference.

The 2019-20 NHL odds reflect the traditional mindset.

The Tampa Bay Lightning are the favorites with 5-1 odds, fresh off capturing the Presidents' Trophy with the league's best regular-season record, though they were upset in the first round.

"There's no reason to think they're not going to be a buzzsaw again," Davis said. "They have a top-three goalie. All lines can score. They have to be the favorite and they have to be a sizable favorite."

Vegas (9-1), St. Louis (10-1), the Boston Bruins (12-1) and Toronto Maple Leafs (12-1) are next in line. The Ottawa Senators (400-1), Los Angeles Kings (150-1) and Detroit Red Wings (100-1) represent the long shots with triple-digit odds.

Now, after the Blues' unlikely title and Berry's six-figure payday, all odds seem to have life.

"It's sports. Things happen. That's a bet you generally want to take. It's usually 400 free dollars," Davis said. "Now it's not, though."