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PITTSBURGH -- Sidney Crosbys mini-vacation after the latest triumph in his remarkable career lasted all of four days.Sorry, but the process of defending a Stanley Cup waits for no one. So there Crosby was on Tuesday skating in line rushes with the rest of his Pittsburgh Penguins teammates just five days removed from leading Team Canada to the World Cup of Hockey title as the tournaments MVP.And no, Crosby wasnt about to complain about being tired. Thats simply not his way. Besides, his electric performance during the World Cup offered plenty of proof hes fresh as the Penguins look to become the first team since the 1998 Detroit Red Wings to repeat as Cup champions.When youre playing a lot of hockey its more comfortable, Crosby said. You just have to balance rest and recovery and making sure youre ready to play.Crosby certainly looked ready while piling up 10 points during Canadas clinical domination of the eight-team tournament that featured the worlds best players. He was a unanimous selection as tournament MVP just a few months removed from being named the Conn Smythe Trophy winner after guiding the Penguins to their fourth championship.Theres no danger of burnout, however. Crosby is a rink rat in the best sense. The Penguins were certainly happy to have his familiar No. 87 on the ice, allowing coach Mike Sullivan to work extensively on special teams for the first time during camp.Thats just fine by Crosby, who is well aware of the challenge that awaits the Penguins after they visit the White House on Thursday and raise the Cup banner to the rafters at newly renamed PPG Paints Arena during the season opener next Thursday against Washington.Theres a reason why it hasnt been done for a long time, Crosby said. Everyone wants to beat you. Everyone wants to measure themselves against you.The last time Pittsburgh tried to go back-to-back the Penguins didnt make it out of the second round of the playoffs in 2010. Five sometimes turbulent years for the franchise and its star followed before Sullivans arrival last December and a commitment by management to provide needed depth galvanized Pittsburgh last spring, leading a sprint through the postseason that ended with Crosby taking the Cup from commissioner Gary Bettman for a second time.The Penguins did little to tinker with their personnel during the offseason, which should only aid Crosby as he gets up to speed.It shouldnt take long to adjust or adapt, Crosby said. Playing kind of long into last year, that intensity, that desperation that you finish the season off, you hopefully can kind of carry that off to the start of this season. NMD XR1 Australia . White came in fourth place in the event. He was the two-time defending gold medallist. The gold medal went to Swiss snowboarder Iouri Podladtchikov. NMD Buy Australia . -- Jimmie Johnson held off a teammate, passed a pair of Hall of Famers, and dominated once more at Dover. http://www.nmdaustraliasale.com/nmd-r2-shoes-australia.html . -- The proud fathers huddled near the Dallas Stars dressing room, smiling, laughing and telling stories while wearing replica green sweaters of their sons team. NMD R1 Mens Australia . Scott Kazmir allowed four hits in seven shutout innings, Michael Brantley hit a two-run homer in a three-run first inning and the Indians maintained their hold on an AL wild-card spot with a 4-1 win over the Houston Astros on Saturday night. Cheap NMD Australia . Kyle Denbrook, a soccer player from Saint Marys University, took the CIS male athlete of the week honour. Stanley, a fourth-year business administration student from Charlottetown, scored both goals in a 2-0 win over Dalhousie on Friday and tallied again in a 1-0 win over Saint Marys on Sunday. Middlesex 249 for 5 (Gubbins 82) trail Surrey 415 (Roy 110, Burns 88, Foakes 63*) by 166 runsScorecard At 4.36pm on June 11 on a sun-drenched Lords day, Nick Compton trudged back through the Long Room at Lords. Compton had hit a trio of boundaries but, he knew, his 19 was nothing like sufficient to maintain the tenuous hold on his international career.A few days after, Compton announced that he was taking a break from all cricket. The reaction was understandable. Few cricketers have devoted so much of themselves to getting a chance in Test cricket. Having been dropped for the first time, in 2013, Compton struggled for motivation at having his dream taken from him, on the brink of an Ashes series.Yet he reoriented himself to returning to county cricket, moved back to Middlesex and, several thousand hours of hard work later, was recalled to the England side. A fine 85 in Durban helped to set up Englands series triumph in South Africa, but Comptons Test returns deteriorated rapidly thereafter and, by the end of the series with Sri Lanka, to drop him from the side almost seemed an act of mercy.Compton earned himself a second act in Test cricket but, given his age and an often painstaking style at the crease, there will surely be no third act. So if he is to find fulfilment in the shires, it will not come through rekindling his England ambitions. It will have to come, instead, from taking pleasure in county cricket for its own sake: thinking not about what he has lost, but what he still has.And for all Comptons anguish about the curtailment of his international career, he has still returned to a position of remarkable privilege: batting at No. 3, on his home ground of Lords, for the county best-placed to win the County Championship. It is not such a bad lot.So at 12.37pm Compton entered Lords by the very steps he had walked up disconsolately 55 days ago. He emerged with Middlesex having lost an early wicket in reply to Surreys 415, and Tom Curran bowling a zesty new-ball spell. There are exactly the conditions in which Comptons defensive fortitude is so prized.If Compton felt any vulnerability, Surrey were determined to pry on it. He was greeted by a short leg and three slips and, perhaps, a chirp or two. It might not be Test cricket, but Division One of the County Championship is still a ruthless place.Comptons first ball was a good length delivery outside off stump which implored him to play. That he did, defending the ball to third slip. Two balls later Compton pushed a ball into the covers and ran a single that was sharp without quite being one of Kevin Pietersens famed Red Bull runs.When he returned from the lunch interval, it was Comptons ill-fortune to be stuck facing Tom Curran. A couple of times he played and missed, a couple of times Commpton held his bat inside the line of the ball.dddddddddddd. When Curran dropped short, Compton rocked back and pulled him to the square leg boundary. But the illusion of release was deceptive: Stuart Meaker located extra pace, and Compton dragged the ball on. His off stump was left isolated and alone, and perhaps Compton felt the same as he walked back for 11 runs off 43 balls, the sort of innings that explained why he was here, rather than at Edgbaston, in the first place.Some at Lords believe that, in time, Nick Gubbins might go on to emulate Compton in playing for England. Unusually for an English opener, he seems particularly proficient against spin, and some sumptuous shots against Zafar Ansari demonstrated as much. One stood out: Gubbins took a step-down the wicket to meet the ball, flicked his wrists like he was playing a top-spin forehand, and stood to admire the ball clearing long-on for six.The shot also spoke of Middlesexs determination not to allow Ansari to settle into a rhythm. But within three overs Ansari had snared two wickets: Dawid Malan, caught at short leg, and then Gubbins, bowled round his leg sweeping. Both wickets were vindication for Ansari bowling with more pace at the start of his spell, and the adjustment spoke of his shrewd cricketing brain and nurturing by Gareth Batty.Batty himself bowled with typical guile, adjusting his pace subtly, gesticulating to his fielders to move an inch here or an inch there, and giving off the air of a man relishing the tussle. George Baileys hard hands created an acute sense of vulnerability. On 2, Bailey edged to short leg but a sharp chance was put down; three runs later, Bailey inside-edged Meaker for four.On a day in which 11 Australian wickets fell for 77 runs in a Test in Sri Lanka, Bailey could not restore the reputation of Australian batsmanship. Indeed, against spin he inspired scarcely more confidence than Australias motley crew in Galle. After a few isolated glimpses of his assertive best, Bailey succumbed lbw, sweeping, Battys exhortations to the umpire answered.Now, at 204 for 5, Surrey could sense a hefty first innings lead, but John Simpsons adhesive half-century was infused with the grit that has lifted Middlesex to the summit of the Championship table. Yet this Lords pitch is showing modest signs that it will deteriorate over the final two days, and Surreys spin twins will believe they can take the bulk of the 15 Middlesex wickets that remain in this match. For all Middlesexs resolve, spectacular fielding from Rory Burns, flicking the ball back from the ropes to save two from the days penultimate ball, was a testament to Surreys spirit. ' ' '