Sports

Major League Baseball didn’t ask for Hurricane Helene to interrupt what is shaping up to be two fantastic wild-card races. But the league isn’t blameless in avoiding the worst-case scenario announced Wednesday: the potential for the Atlanta Braves and the New York Mets to play a doubleheader Monday, the day before postseason play begins.

The ripple effects of the announced postponement of Wednesday’s and Thursday’s games, a series that could decide both teams’ seasons, are enormous. The competitive disadvantages of playing 18 innings before a Wild Card Series can’t be overstated. (Though if, somehow, one or both games aren’t needed then they won’t be played.)

Could it have been avoided?

Maybe.

MLB has the power to force logistics, to force both teams to play when and where it wants, so long as the union is in agreement. But traditionally, it has tried to appease both teams and, in this case, that was impossible. The storm set to shut down Atlanta for two days was preceded by the perfect storm of events to make this a massive headache for the league.

Thursday’s game is a makeup of an April 10 game that was postponed after the Mets had gone through pregame preparations and taken batting practice and they weren’t willing to come back earlier and burn an off day. So they petitioned MLB to tack on the game to this September series, not only an unusually long wait for a makeup game but also a function of a more balanced schedule in which division teams play each other less, and complicate rescheduling opportunities. (The Braves agreed to the proposition.)

To all of our fans throughout Braves Country that will be impacted by Hurricane Helene, please stay safe. pic.twitter.com/AZ99CPQ7BJ

— Atlanta Braves (@Braves) September 25, 2024

The Mets would likely not have been keen to move Thursday’s game up to this past Monday, another shared off day between the two clubs, as they were coming off a Sunday night game.

The Braves were concerned about the sold-out crowds expected, and earlier in the week the forecast had made it seem feasible for Wednesday’s game to be played, a possibility that got more remote as the weather forecast worsened. Tuesday, when the league mulled a time change, the forecast looked better in the evening. It started raining shortly after noon Wednesday in Atlanta, and pushing up the start time of the game would have mattered little, unless the two teams agreed to an unprecedented morning start. (MLB doesn’t like to start games that are unlikely to go at least five innings.)

Both teams — in contention but yet to clinch a playoff spot — were ultimately looking out for their own best interests, which shouldn’t come as a surprise. What is up for debate is whether the league, which started discussions with both teams Monday, should have acted more boldly with its power and forced the series to play at a neutral site or changed the schedule entirely with a game Monday and two more Tuesday. Perhaps.

On one hand, the weather forecast looked vastly different earlier this week, and all three parties thought Wednesday’s game wouldn’t be an issue. The hurricane isn’t hitting Atlanta until Thursday, with schools closed Thursday and Friday, and the possibility of one makeup game — not two — seemed considerably less daunting. The decision to change the series would have had to come Sunday at the latest when it wasn’t even clear how bad the storm would be and whether Atlanta would be in its path.

It would have been unprecedented — and also a logistical nightmare — to decide earlier this week to move all of or part of the series to a neutral site, one that would have required both teams to be on board and be proactive, which wasn’t the case. For a series with big stakes, it’s understandable that the league didn’t want to pull the plug on a highly anticipated sellout series.

It would have angered at least one, and probably both teams, to change the layout of the series to give them back Thursday’s off day, particularly as it became clear to everyone involved that Thursday wasn’t going to be feasible. But as the regular season winds down and numerous teams are fighting for their playoff lives, it also might have been better in this case to be safe than sorry. That might have required doing the unpleasant and unprecedented thing, even if both teams were upset about it, and decide to move up a series even when the weather report wasn’t crystallized.

Because the flip side is a nightmare, and it could be even more complicated if the AL wild card hopeful Kansas City Royals, who are slated to play in Atlanta this weekend, have travel issues getting in. (If they can’t play Friday, that would almost certainly be a Saturday doubleheader.)

MLB has — in recent years — set the schedule so that every single team plays at the same time Sunday to conclude the regular season. It creates excitement, drama and you can make the case that it evens the competitive field as best as possible. Everyone gets to reset Monday. Unless you’re the Braves or Mets, who could be looking at filling out 18 innings as a way to prepare for a do-or-die Wild Card Series that could start on the road.

The only hope now, for both teams and the league, is Arizona fades and renders those games meaningless enough that they don’t get played. (It’s widely assumed both teams would prefer the off day than to play for a mere playoff seed.) The alternative is bad for the Braves, bad for the Mets and just bad for baseball.

(Photo: Kevin D. Liles / Atlanta Braves / Getty Images)

Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti was in typically relaxed form when he spoke to the media before Tuesday’s La Liga game at home to Deportivo Alaves this week.

“I’ve been lucky enough to coach 300 games at the best club in the world,” Ancelotti said. “To be on this bench is something special. To sit there 300 times… I’m not saying it’s a miracle, but almost.”

To reach such a milestone at any big European club is a superb achievement. It is especially impressive at Real Madrid, given president Florentino Perez’s history of hiring and firing coaches. Only one manager has taken charge of more games at Madrid: Miguel Munoz, with 605 between 1959 and 1974.

It helps that during both of Ancelotti’s spells as Madrid manager (he was in charge from 2013-2015 and returned in 2021) the team won the Champions League, first in 2014 and then in 2022 and 2024. But winning trophies alone is often not enough to ensure job security at the Bernabeu.

Just 12 months after delivering Madrid’s long-awaited tenth European Cup in 2014, Ancelotti was fired by Perez as serious issues arose in their relationship. His second spell has also featured several rocky moments — while also delivering two more Champions League titles.

To survive, and thrive, in arguably the most demanding environment in football is, as Ancelotti himself recognised this week, almost miraculous.

So how has he done it?

Over almost three decades working as a manager (he started at Italian club Reggiana in 1995), Ancelotti has acquired plenty of experience working for big characters used to issuing orders and seeing them quickly followed.

At AC Milan (2001-2009), Silvio Berlusconi was the owner — as well as the domineering prime minister of Italy for part of Ancelotti’s spell. His ultimate boss at Chelsea (2009-2011) was Roman Abramovich, a secretive Russian oligarch. At Paris Saint-Germain (2011-2013), the president was Nasser Al Khelaifi, a close associate of the ruling powers in Qatar.

Between his spells at Madrid his superiors were Bayern Munich’s self-confident president Uli Hoeness (Ancelotti was there for 2016-17), Napoli’s larger-than-life president Aurelio de Laurentiis (during 2018-19) and Everton’s majority owner Farhad Moshiri (2019-2021).

Ancelotti’s 2016 book — Quiet Leadership: winning hearts, minds and matches — includes a whole section on “managing up”, discussing his experiences dealing with colourful and powerful bosses.

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Co-written with former Chelsea director Mike Forde and management consultant Chris Brady, it was published between the Italian being fired by Madrid in June 2015 and him joining Bayern the following summer.

At Milan, Ancelotti wrote, it soon became clear certain realities had to be accepted: “With Berlusconi I learned very quickly that, since he owned Milan, my job was to please Berlusconi.”

Ancelotti and Silvio Berlusconi pictured in January 2006 (Giuseppe Cacace/AFP via Getty Images)

On joining Chelsea, Abramovich instructed him to play a possession-based style of football. To do so, Ancelotti asked for playmaker Andrea Pirlo but when that was not possible, he used Michael Essien in that role. The book does not complain, but readers will know these are two very different types of players.

Ancelotti could handle not getting everything he wanted in the transfer market but it was more problematic that every time Chelsea lost a game, Abramovich arrived to personally demand answers.

“(That) taught me how to deal with this different kind of president,” Ancelotti wrote in his book. “I chose not to meet aggression with aggression, it is not my way. I like to think through difficult times, address the problems coolly and with reason.”

Ancelotti decided to use the owner’s interference in his job to motivate the team — and they won a Premier League and FA Cup double in his first season in charge. He wrote that the players knew Abramovich was “on my case” and they “responded brilliantly”.

It was difficult for that approach to succeed in the long term, and Abramovich fired Ancelotti after the following season ended trophyless. Next, he joined PSG, where the general director was Leonardo, “a friend of mine from Milan”.

Within 12 months it was clear things were not going to work out. After PSG lost to Ligue 1 rival Nice in December 2012, Leonardo told him he would be sacked if they did not beat Porto in their next game. Ancelotti realised Al Khelaifi had decided that the ‘project’ was not working, so he informed his bosses he would leave at the end of the season.

Next stop was the Bernabeu, where Ancelotti quickly realised he should just focus on coaching the first team and not worry about things outside his control. In his book, he wrote about realising “you are only ever a piece of the project” at Real Madrid. He said accepting that liberated him to focus on getting the best out of his players.

Following three seasons of predecessor Jose Mourinho’s pragmatic approach, Perez wanted a more attractive style of football at Madrid. Ancelotti set to work, allowing senior figures Sergio Ramos, Xabi Alonso, Cristiano Ronaldo and Luka Modric greater responsibility. He also devised new roles for Gareth Bale and Angel Di Maria within a 4-3-3 tactical shape. It delivered ‘La Decima’ in his first season.

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The strength of the relationships Ancelotti built is shown by Ronaldo guest-writing a chapter in Quiet Leadership.

“One of the reasons the atmosphere was so good was because Carlo protected the dressing room from the president and anything else that might upset the balance of the family,” Ronaldo wrote. “I’ve seen that he does not bow to pressure from anyone: he makes his own decisions.”

Ancelotti and Ronaldo celebrate reaching the 2014 Champions League final (Stuart Franklin – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)

Yet not all was perfect. Quiet Leadership also tells of Perez informing Ancelotti that Bale’s agent said his client wanted to play more centrally on the pitch. The Italian spoke directly with the player, explaining the team’s setup, and his vital role in it. He also used a press conference to tell the agent to “shut up”. Ancelotti wrote that this changed his relationship with Perez.

When Madrid lost a few games in early 2015, the club hierarchy grew concerned at a report claiming that Madrid’s training sessions were not intense enough. Ancelotti thought the squad needed more rest, especially with important players Ramos and Modric injured. The issue was never resolved, and when the season ended without a major trophy, the axe came.

Ancelotti wrote that his time at Madrid was “shorter than he’d hoped, but also longer than many who manage there”.

He added: “Leading may sometimes involve compromise, especially at the biggest clubs, but not when it comes to your expertise and you have the conviction of your decisions.”

Returning to Madrid in summer 2021, Ancelotti was well aware of the issues that caused friction the first time around. He accepted without complaint the club adding fitness coach Antonio Pintus to his staff, and repeated often that energy and physicality were vital for success in today’s game.

But he also insisted on bringing his own son Davide, then 34, as his assistant coach. This raised eyebrows at the Bernabeu, where the number two has often been a former club legend with the president’s ear. Ancelotti talks in his book a lot about how his closest staff are like a family. Now that was literally the case.

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Ancelotti was also well aware that the president would continue to have the final say on transfer policy. That meant adapting tactics to the current squad. The team sat deeper, meaning less running for veteran midfielders Toni Kroos and Modric, and more space for Vinicius Junior to exploit. Balance came from midfielder Federico Valverde on the right wing. It paid off when Valverde assisted Vinicius Jr’s winning goal in the 2021-22 Champions League final against Liverpool.

Ancelotti is mobbed after Madrid’s victory in the 2022 Champions League final (Jose Breton/Pics Action/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

When Karim Benzema left for Saudi Arabia in summer 2023, Ancelotti wanted England captain Harry Kane as a direct replacement. That option was not seriously pursued by Perez, so instead he created a new attacking role for Jude Bellingham, who scored 23 goals as Madrid won the La Liga and Champions League double last season.

Such success was far from inevitable. In May 2023, Madrid were thrashed 4-0 by Pep Guardiola’s City in a decisive Champions League semi-final second leg, just as Xavi’s Barcelona were easily winning the La Liga title. It was a rocky spell not unlike that which ended Ancelotti’s first term at the Bernabeu.

Ancelotti had an easy escape route — Brazil wanted him as their next national coach. His first option was always to remain in the Spanish capital, but speculation continued well into the 2023-24 campaign, with Ancelotti’s contract due to expire in June 2025.

It was an awkward situation, as Perez is not used to any coach having such strong bargaining power. The Bernabeu hierarchy considered other options, including Bayer Leverkusen coach Alonso. Meanwhile, Ancelotti’s team went on a 17-game unbeaten run, winning 14 and drawing three, including a 2-1 Clasico victory at Barcelona, putting them in control of the La Liga title race. In late December, he was offered an extension to 2026 and accepted.

“I can’t control the direction of the president, I can only hope to influence him, and the best way to do that is by winning,” Ancelotti wrote in his 2016 book.

There was another awkward moment just last month. The Ancelottis wanted Madrid to hire 38-year-old Stockport County coach Andy Mangan, who is close to Davide. Not everyone at the Bernabeu liked the idea, and in the end the Spanish authorities refused Mangan a work permit.

That came amid a feeling around the Bernabeu that Madrid have not started the new season well, with departed playmaker Kroos badly missed. Stuttgart having more possession (54 per cent to Madrid’s 46 per cent) in last week’s Champions League group game at the Bernabeu fed a debate about the team’s style of play (even though Madrid won 3-1).

Afterwards, Ancelotti faced tough questioning from reporters well aware that Perez prefers to see his team dominating possession and playing stylish attacking football.

“Maybe we could play better, but Real Madrid fans are used to seeing ‘rock and roll’ football, not lots of touches,” he responded coolly. “We try, with our characteristics, to make the fans happy. The fans like winning more than playing well. The ideal is to win and play well.”

Ancelotti with his Real Madrid players in pre-season this August (Victor Carretero/Real Madrid via Getty Images)

It was typical Ancelotti. He made the point that his squad, especially in midfield and attack, is made up of players suited to football that is “entertaining, direct, intense, with pace”. The underlying message was that he was making the best of the players available, while everyone knew he was not primarily responsible for assembling the squad. It was all delivered calmly, showing he was in control of the situation and nobody should worry.

Not all top managers react to criticism, or interference from above, in such a way. With some, their ego gets in the way. But at this stage of his career, and his life, the 65-year-old Ancelotti has sufficient self confidence to not react to treatment others might take personally. His experience of dealing with many different owners and presidents has taught him to be philosophical.

“I’ve learned that getting sacked — and getting recruited for that matter — is rarely just about you,” Ancelotti wrote in Quiet Leadership. “It is always about the person hiring or firing you. Do your job to the best of your ability and let others judge you because they will anyway.”

In another section of the book, he puts it differently.

“As Vito Corleone would have said in one of my favourite movies, The Godfather, ‘It’s not personal. It’s just business.’”

(Top photo: Angel Martinez – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)

TORONTO – Kevin Gausman threw six strong innings and Alejandro Kirk drove in three runs as the Toronto Blue Jays defeated the Boston Red Sox 6-1 on Wednesday to end a five-game losing skid.

Leadoff hitter Jonatan Clase hit his first career home run for the Blue Jays (74-85) and added two singles and a walk. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. chipped in with two of Toronto’s 11 hits.

The Red Sox (80-79) were denied a three-game sweep and had their four-game win streak come to an end. Jarren Duran had two hits and scored Boston’s lone run.

Gausman (14-11) allowed four hits and one earned run for his third straight victory. Brendon Little, Erik Swanson and Chad Green threw a scoreless frame apiece.

Richard Fitts (0-1) made his fourth career start for the Red Sox. He did not give up an earned run in his first three starts, settling for no-decisions despite pitching at least five innings in each appearance.

Toronto nearly ended his streak in the first inning. Clase singled and reached third after a sacrifice bunt and a groundout but Kirk lined out to end the threat.

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The Blue Jays got to Fitts in the fourth when Guerrero doubled and came around on a Kirk double. Kirk moved to third base on a groundout and scored when Ernie Clement stroked a single through the left side of the infield.

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In the fifth inning, Lukes dropped his second sacrifice bunt of the game to move Tyler Heineman to third and Clase to second base.

Kirk drove in both runners by smacking a ball off the wall near the right-field corner. The slow-footed catcher was thrown out at second base to end the inning after both runners had crossed the plate.

Gausman threw five shutout frames before Boston tallied in the sixth. Duran hit a leadoff double and scored when Triston Casas lined a single to right field.

Fitts allowed six hits, four earned runs and two walks while striking out two over five innings. Gausman fanned three batters and issued three walks.

Clase hit a two-run shot in the seventh inning off Red Sox reliever Josh Winckowski. Guerrero had a bloop single later in the frame to leave him three away of the 200-hit plateau for the season.

The Rogers Centre roof opened shortly before first pitch. Announced attendance was 27,694 and the game took two hours 31 minutes to play.

BICHETTE UPDATE

Blue Jays shortstop Bo Bichette was scheduled to undergo surgery Wednesday to repair his fractured right middle finger.

He suffered the season-ending injury last week while taking grounders during infield practice.

Blue Jays manager John Schneider said a pin would be used to help address a “little displacement” in Bichette’s finger. A recovery timeline wasn’t provided but Bichette is expected to be ready for spring training.

COACHING SHUFFLE

Blue Jays field coordinator Gil Kim served as first-base coach for the series finale against the Red Sox.

Regular first-base coach Mark Budzinski moved across the diamond to fill in for third-base coach Carlos Febles, who underwent knee surgery on Tuesday.

COMING UP

The Blue Jays have an off-day Thursday before kicking off their final series of the season on Friday against the visiting Miami Marlins.

The Red Sox will return home to prepare for Friday’s opener of a three-game set against the Tampa Bay Rays.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 25, 2024.

Follow @GregoryStrongCP on X.

&copy 2024 The Canadian Press

“He’s in charge of that right butt cheek,” Eli Manning says.

It’s Sunday afternoon of Week 2, a little more than 24 hours before the Manning brothers are on the air, and a flurry of voice memos lights up Peyton’s phone.

“The RPOs all look bad, Peyt.”

“I don’t think Kirk was under center for one play, which is strange.”

The voice memos have a backstory: A few years ago, while he was watching a Broncos game, Peyton had to sneak into a bathroom at Empower Field in Denver after a coach called him later than expected. He found himself scribbling notes on a pad of paper, barely able to make out the answers. He decided that day: voice memos from here on out. So this is what the prep looks like — er, sounds like — for a broadcast that’ll earn 1.34 million viewers Monday night: two brothers sending a dozen memos back and forth, sharing every bit of intel they gather during the week.

Like, in this instance, which of Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts’ assets running back Saquon Barkley is responsible for shoving during the Tush Push.

“Got your message, E, and I agree, using the silent count at home is just demoralizing,” Peyton says in another voice memo addressing Kirk Cousins and the Falcons’ offense. “My first playoff game with the Colts we had to use the silent count at home … it was a body blow.”

“Play 51,” he says in another, sighing as he watches a replay of Hurts throwing an interception. “Just a total force. Check it down!”

It’s Year 4 of the “ManningCast,” ESPN’s alternative “Monday Night Football” broadcast that features three hours of brotherly banter with A-list guests and high-level scheme talk spliced in between. As the Eagles hosted the Atlanta Falcons, Peyton and Eli gave The Athletic access to a full week behind the scenes, starting with the voice memos and ending with live broadcasts from inside the basement of Eli’s suburban New Jersey home and the garage-turned-studio Peyton shoots from in Denver.

Peyton Manning broadcasts from a friend’s garage in Denver. (Courtesy of Omaha Productions)

In a lot of ways, both former quarterbacks prepare like they’re still playing. “If you don’t study, it’s gonna show,” Peyton says. He still uses the same beat-up spiral notebooks he did as a player.

Late in his career, he’d have his backup watch a few extra games of film for him — Peyton could never watch enough film — then make a presentation the day before the game. The only difference now is he has his little brother doing it.

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Eli spent the afternoon in the backyard playing football and wiffleball with his four children. The satellite truck parked in the driveway is the only indication that his house will be the site of a national broadcast later that evening. By 7 p.m. ET, he settles into his seat on the oversized blue couch in his basement.

Roughly 1,700 miles away, Peyton’s SUV pulls into a nondescript commercial garage on a nondescript street in Denver. He parks inside so no one sees him, then walks purposely to his seat, breezing past a row of collector cars, and plops his notebook down.

Both are already in their game-day attire: khakis and a quarter-zip. Peyton looks up.

“Bill, so formal!”

Bill Belichick has appeared on a screen to his left. The legendary former New England Patriots coach and longtime Manning foil is joining the broadcast during the first half of games. Belichick is in Philadelphia for this one, dressed in a full suit, and he cracks a joke about the warm reception he earned from Eagles fans. “The site of unbrotherly love,” he says with a laugh. “I mentioned I was with the ‘ManningCast’ and got booed.”

“Did you get the finger?” Peyton asks.

“A tradition unlike any other,” Belichick says.

Finally, it’s go-time. But first …

“Peyt, your zipper,” Eli says. “No, not your sweater zipper. The other one.”

Peyton laughs. “Good call. That would’ve been bad.”

Peyton stumbled into the idea a few years ago after meeting with most of the major networks — CBS, Fox, ESPN — about analyst jobs that would’ve paid him ridiculously well. Each spring, they’d fly out to Denver and make their pitches. Each time, he’d turn them down.

Manning kept going back to what his old Indianapolis Colts coach, Tony Dungy, told him after he retired in 2016: “Don’t do anything for a year, then decide what you don’t wanna do first.”

Manning didn’t want to spend every fall weekend on the road, hustling to stadiums. He’d been doing that since he was a freshman at Tennessee in 1994. He wanted to be home. He wanted to coach his son’s flag football team and watch his daughter play volleyball. He wanted to catch more than one Volunteers game a year.

The pull to run or coach an NFL team was never quite there. Colts owner Jim Irsay chased him hard in the winter of 2017, offering any executive role he wanted. Talks grew “serious,” Irsay later said, but Manning knew if he took the job it would consume him the same way being a starting quarterback had consumed him.

“That’s a don’t-do-anything-else job,” he says now.

And coaching? He didn’t think he’d be any good at it.

“A lot of people just assumed I’d be a good coach, and I’m like, ‘Why? Because I can call some plays at the line of scrimmage?’ I used to call them when our other QBs were in. We’d go three-and-out, three-and-out, punt, punt. I’m like, ‘I’m no good at this.’”

Eli pre-empted any courting from networks. “I just told my agent, ‘I’m not traveling around to do that, and I just don’t think I’d be very good at it,’” he says. “‘Don’t even pursue it.’

“We knew our dad had opportunities to do (broadcasting) and didn’t do it because he wanted to be around us and coach us in our youth sports teams. We kind of had the same approach.”

In 2020 Peyton founded Omaha Productions, making him, in all likelihood, the first person in history to name a media company after an audible. When co-founder Jamie Horowitz, a longtime media exec with stops at Fox Sports and ESPN, gauged his interest in calling games in a different way — from his own home, without any travel, perhaps even with his brother — he was in. Peyton sold it to Eli in the simplest of terms: “It’s like we’re watching a game on our couch.”

Still, the premise needed to be fleshed out. How would this work? How would they keep it interesting? “Just have the conversations on the air that you’d normally have off the air,” Horowitz told them. He wanted viewers of the “ManningCast” to feel like they were watching the game next to two Super Bowl MVPs at the bar.

It’s working. ESPN just signed Omaha to a nine-year extension that will run through 2034.

“The show finds a way to provide both expert analysis and lots of fun in every telecast,” ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro said in a statement provided to The Athletic. “It really has redefined what an alternate telecast can be.”

At first, they thought they needed a host. So Kyle Brandt of “Good Morning Football” was summoned to the Hamptons to meet Eli for lunch. He walked in nervous, thinking the opportunity to host a show with the Manning brothers might change the arc of his career. Then he saw Eli and couldn’t help but laugh.

“He’s sitting there surrounded by a hive of kids eating nachos in a golf polo and shorts,” Brandt remembers. “Exactly like you’d expect.”

They hit it off. The three called a Cleveland Browns–Baltimore Ravens game over Zoom. Brandt aced it. He moved things along, set the brothers up, got them laughing. But in the back of his mind, he knew the show didn’t need him.

“The second I stopped talking, Peyton was like Mozart picking up the baton,” Brandt says now.

He called Horowitz. “Don’t hire me,” Brandt told him. “Don’t hire anyone. They’re incredible at this.”

ESPN’s Mina Kimes also auditioned, but the brothers decided Brandt was right. The first episode of the “ManningCast” aired in Week 1 of the 2021 season. By Week 2 almost 2 million viewers were tuning in.

“It could’ve been David Letterman, Ed Sullivan, Johnny Carson, it didn’t matter,” Brandt says. “The show didn’t need a host.”

Eli Manning’s setup in the basement of his New Jersey home is characteristically understated. (Courtesy of Omaha Productions)

On game day, a nine-person crew arrives at Eli’s house at 11 a.m. and won’t leave until after midnight. Some work in a storage space in his basement that has been transformed into a control room, with a bank of cables and wires installed next to boxes of holiday decorations and football memorabilia. Other crew members work down the hall in his laundry room.

“I don’t think (my wife) realized how much production would go into it,” Eli says.

Peyton thought about using his basement as well, but renovations made it tricky. Then he had an idea: a close friend of his, Scott, owned a garage close to downtown. What about building a studio and shooting it there?

Scott owed him a favor anyway. Back in 2014, during his second-to-last year with the Broncos, Peyton threw four interceptions in a loss to the Bengals, then saw a text — “Do you think Peyton has money on this game?” — flash across his phone later that night.

It was from Scott, who thought he was texting someone else. “I’ve been holding that against him ever since,” Peyton says, laughing. “I basically told him, after all the pain and anguish that text caused me, ‘I need to borrow your garage.’”

Inside the garage, 10 crew members work behind a wall a few feet from the leather chair from which Peyton watches the game. Over the next three hours, he grows antsy, animated, even angry — especially when he’s watching bad offensive football.

He’s a homer for whichever quarterback is on the field, often referring to that team as “we.” “Eli gives me a hard time for that,” he says. He’s on the edge of his seat the whole time, eyes locked on the screen, mouth open, processing, predicting, reacting in real time. He can’t even watch football without giving 100 percent effort.

“They miss too many tackles,” Belichick grumbles on the air. “They’re light. They don’t do a good job of wrapping up.”

“Bill, how does that happen?” Peyton asks.

“Honestly, it was the same issue last week. They didn’t tackle very well against Pittsburgh.”

We’re into the first quarter, and Belichick is trashing the Falcons’ defense eight months after he interviewed for the team’s head coaching job. Peyton loves the honesty. “Bill is all ball,” he says off the air, “and we need the defensive perspective.”

Who would have thought 15 years ago: Peyton Manning and Bill Belichick teaming up to call games?

“I know, right?” Peyton says.

Beneath their bitter rivalry during Manning’s playing days, the two shared a healthy relationship. Each recognized in the other a mind as sharp as his own, a rare football peer. They relished trying to outwit one another, often with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line. Once, at the Pro Bowl in Hawaii, the two sat at a bar for hours, Manning sipping Budweisers, Belichick drinking Coronas, talking scheme and moving salt and pepper shakers around like receivers running routes.

Asked later if they gave anything away, each shook his head. “Hell no,” they snapped.

Belichick didn’t know what the “ManningCast” was until he was asked about joining the show this spring. Finally, he watched a few clips. “Oh,” the coach said, “I can do that.” But there’s an understanding that his run in the third chair will likely be brief.

“He may be one-and-done,” Eli says. “I’m sure he wants to get back into coaching.”

There was a lag with Belichick’s feed in Week 1 that led to choppy interactions and awkward stretches of silence. It was cleaned up for Week 2, and Belichick hit his stride with some incisive commentary — “That’s a lot of money to pay a cornerback who hasn’t had an interception in 1,000 days,” he said of the Falcons’ A.J. Terrell.

“Bill, do you just have a dartboard with pictures of me and (Nick) Foles on it?” Eli asks, bringing up Belichick’s Super Bowl losses as Patriots coach.

“Yeah, I have three at my house,” Belichick deadpans. “Two of you and one of Foles.”

“Peyton made me talk about it, Coach,” Eli says.

During most commercial breaks, Peyton asks producer Scott Matthews for the All-22 replay on a separate screen so he can break down the play when they’re back on the air. At one point, he and Belichick are dissecting one together. “They need to double-team the sh– out of that guy,” Belichick says.

Peyton cracks up. “Yeah, just say that Bill, ‘Double-team the sh– out of him.’”

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Later in the half, after a lousy throw from Cousins, Peyton raises his hands above his head in disgust. Then, after Hurts scrambles for a 23-yard gain and earns a penalty for spiking the ball after the play, Peyton smacks the table.

“What is he doing?!?” he screams. “Barry Sanders! Just hand the ball to the ref!”

He’s still hot during halftime a few minutes later.

“I hate penalties like that,” he says. “I think it sends a bad message to young people. You make a great play, then you taunt. I don’t like that.”

Unlike his brother, Eli makes life easy on his cameraman. He rarely leaves his spot on the couch. During halftime, Peyton downs two enchiladas in about six minutes; Eli doesn’t eat a thing. He never even takes a bathroom break. While Peyton gets four or five touch-ups from a makeup assistant during commercial breaks, Eli is lower maintenance.

“I’m all natural,” Eli says proudly. “He sweats, it’s his shiny forehead.”

The football part comes easy: Both can immediately diagnose why a play did or didn’t work, then explain it to the audience. After Cousins hits Drake London for a 19-yard gain, Eli’s eyes immediately dart to the All-22 screen to his right. He sees a bigger play was missed. Wideout Ray-Ray McCloud broke open on an over route. Could’ve been a touchdown.

Quarterbacks — even retired ones — hate missing touchdowns.

Later, after the Eagles run a successful Tush Push, Eli chimes in. His prep work has paid off. He’s quick to tell the viewer which of Hurts’ two butt cheeks Barkley is supposed to drive forward. (Turns out, the Mannings have had some detailed butt-cheek conversations on the show before.)

True to their personalities, Peyton is the alpha of the broadcast, directing traffic during breaks, barking at producers, suggesting which questions they ask an upcoming guest. It’s easy to tell what being his teammate was like. Eli, every bit as locked in, is outwardly far more relaxed, reminiscent of the “Easy E” nickname he earned during his Giants days. He also provides comic relief. While his brother frantically demonstrates what a center should do after snapping the football, Eli cracks, “Can we get him a helmet that fits?”

The guests can be polarizing. When they’re good, they add to the loose vibe the Mannings are after: rapper Snoop Dogg presented Eli with a gold Death Row Records chain as a birthday present. When they’re bad — Arnold Schwarzenegger decided to feed his donkey during the show — they turn off viewers whose primary interest is hearing two Super Bowl MVPs discuss the game.

“If you’re not talking about every play and doing play-by-play, is there enough to talk about?” Eli asks. “The idea was just to shake it up, have a little bit more fun with it and break up the amount of time Peyton and I have to talk.”

The goal each week is one celebrity — ideally an ardent fan of one of the teams — and a player or coach for the fourth quarter. Eli and Peyton clearly enjoy having them on, but it can be a challenge to keep the focus on football. On this night, they went from breaking down the beach football scene from “Top Gun: Maverick” with actor Miles Teller to analyzing a 41-yard touchdown catch by Darnell Mooney.

The final guest, Falcons legend Matt Ryan, slides in seamlessly. The game’s getting good, and having another quarterback on the air gives the broadcast another sharp perspective.

“Matt, can you stay with us the rest of the way?” Peyton asks during a commercial break.

“Let’s do it,” Ryan says.

Barkley could have iced the game for the Eagles with 1:46 left, but he dropped Hurts’ throw on third-and-3 from the Atlanta 10. Peyton is beside himself. He covers his face with his hands. Then he shoots out of his chair.

“Perfect throw, front shoulder,” he vents. “That’s why you don’t throw it there!”

Then his mind shifts to the other sideline.

“Kirk Cousins is over there telling his guys, ‘We’re gonna go win this game.’”

That’s what they do. Cousins leads a six-play, 70-yard drive that ends with a touchdown to London to win it. Peyton’s foot is tapping the entire time. He’s nervous. He’s sweating. He’s into this one. One moment, he’s screaming at the screen. The next, he’s coaching the Falcons’ players on the rules of the two-minute offense.

“No sacks!”

“Decline it! Decline it!”

“No spot! No spot! Let (the ref) spot the ball!”

“Don’t score too quickly!”

Back in New Jersey, Eli’s adrenaline is still pumping after the game is over. It takes the crew about 45 minutes to pack up, so he heads to his office, where he’ll check his text messages and read his dad’s review of the broadcast. Archie always watches.

Peyton exits the garage, still shaking his head. He looks like he’s out of breath, like he led the game-winning drive. “People ask me if I miss playing,” he says. “And I’ll tell you what: I miss that plane ride home Atlanta’s about to have. But I don’t miss for one second that feeling Philly has right now.”

The next morning, the Omaha team has a meeting to review the broadcast. Same as their playing days, both quarterbacks will be graded on their performance. Peyton likes it this way.

“You never wanna stop being coached, right?” he says.

(Illustration: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; photos courtesy of Omaha Productions, Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)

CHICAGO — White Sox fans booing? It happens almost every game on the South Side.

White Sox fans chanting “Sell the team!”? It’s like their version of “How ya doing?”

But White Sox fans booing the White Sox for winning a game? Well, that is a little unusual, even for this wacky franchise.

But that’s exactly what happened Tuesday night when the Sox beat the Los Angeles Angels 3-2 in front of 17,606 fans, some national reporters and a bunch of dogs.

At first, fans cheered when the final out was recorded. But then the boos rained down. It was odd, to say the least, but not completely out of character for the night.

After all, many Sox fans cheered and gave a standing ovation when the Angels took the lead in the seventh inning. I know because I was sitting among them in Section 108.

The mood in Section 108: pic.twitter.com/qCdgeI4h8T

— jon greenberg (@jon_greenberg) September 25, 2024

The mass of fans cheered again when the Angels tacked on an insurance run in the eighth. The Sox came into the game with a 20-58 record at Guaranteed Rate Field. So many of these people have paid to see an awful lot of losses. At least this one would’ve meant something. It would’ve been loss No. 121, breaking the loss record the 2024 team shares with the 1962 Mets. Instead, they saw the Sox win their 37th game.

Were the Sox players offended by their fans booing them for winning? Given the way they’ve played, do they even have a right to be?

“I understand where they’re coming from, why they’re frustrated,” said starting pitcher Jonathan Cannon, who struck out seven in six scoreless innings. “Obviously, we’ve had a rough year. At one point or another, we were all baseball fans and we had our team growing up and we were pissed off when they were bad, so we understand where they’re coming from. But I thought it was a good crowd tonight and they were behind us for a lot of it.”

“It’s been a long season,” White Sox outfielder Andrew Benintendi said. “I think that people here tonight were maybe trying to see history. But they’re going to have to wait one more day.”

Then he flashed a quick smile.

“Maybe.”

First time I’ve heard White Sox fans boo when the team wins pic.twitter.com/oKHu9RbnYw

— Josh Nelson – Sox Machine (@soxmachine_josh) September 25, 2024

Could this be the start of a White Sox season-ending winning streak to deny everyone the moment they’ve been clamoring for? Considering the team has won consecutive games only seven times all season (and never more than four in a row), probably not. After two more with the Angels, they head to Detroit, where the out-of-nowhere Tigers are trying to lock down a wild-card berth.

But you know the old saying: whenever you go to a baseball game, you could see something you’ve never seen before.

For instance:

The Sox were 0-94 when trailing after seven innings this season and they found themselves down 1-0 when Angels first baseman Eric Wagaman drove in Kevin Pillar with a double. They were down 2-0 in the top of the eighth inning when Jack López hit a solo homer, the first of his career. López even pointed to the outfield as he ran to second base like he was in Anaheim.

Again, the Sox were 0-94 when trailing after seven innings.

So we did see history on Tuesday night. We saw a White Sox comeback.

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In the bottom of the eighth, Zach DeLoach and Bryan Ramos hit back-to-back doubles, scoring one run. Lenyn Sosa walked, prompting a pitching change from the Angels. With two outs, Luis Robert Jr. hit a towering fly ball to second base and López, the home run hero earlier in the inning, just missed it. The ball dropped next to him and the game was suddenly, shockingly tied. Benintendi followed with a run-scoring single to give the Sox this thing called a lead.

“That popup, it’s tough,” Benintendi said. “The wind is always blowing here. We finally got a break it feels like. We haven’t been on that side of it too many times.”

And then, just as surprisingly, Justin Anderson locked down his first save of the season, which was only the team’s 20th all year, compared to 36 blown saves.

Of course, all of it happened when people came to the park to see the White Sox lose. They can’t even lose the right way. But I couldn’t help but smile when I walked into the postgame clubhouse as Petey Pablo’s “Freek-A-Leek” boomed through the speakers.

As for the first comeback win, were the Sox players even aware of that ridiculous statistic?

“I don’t think everybody knows that, but first comeback win coming this late in the season, that’s hard to believe,” Benintendi said. “I’m glad we got it done tonight.”

The White Sox tied the Mets’ record on Sunday night in San Diego, which set them up to break it at home under the bright lights of Guaranteed Rate Field.

The announced crowd was right around their season average. The game marked the start of “Fan Appreciation Week,” and it was also “Dog Day,” where fans could bring their pooches and sit in the outfield. You could hear the barking from the press box. It was a refreshing change from the boos.

A full stadium-wide chant of “Sell the team!” first spread in the fifth inning when four White Sox players converged and allowed a fly ball to drop between them down the first base line. It was the kind of mental error that has happened all too often this season.

Feel the magic of Chicago White Sox baseball pic.twitter.com/DFXXRC2DfC

— Mr Matthew CFB (@MrMatthew_CFB) September 25, 2024

It would’ve been fitting if the floodgates opened and the Angels scored a bunch of runs and everyone went home happy they witnessed history. But that didn’t happen. Cannon got out of the jam and the game stayed scoreless until the seventh. That’s when the fun began. That’s when we saw something we hadn’t seen before: a late White Sox comeback.

Who knows what we’ll see at 35th and Shields on Wednesday?

(Photo: Justin Casterline / Getty Images)

Start with the shoes.

Before Michael Jordan had ever played in an official NBA game, his sneakers generated conversation and controversy. Jordan wore a pair of primarily black Nikes with a red swoosh during his first preseason games. The Chicago Bulls, worried about the shoes’ glitz, had reservations about him doing it again. The NBA objected, too, and threatened a $1,000 fine if he rocked them a second time, and $5,000 for every time after that.

Exactly four decades later, Caitlin Clark’s sneakers also made headlines before her first official game. Last spring, Clark agreed to a historic eight-figure endorsement deal with Nike that is expected to result in her own signature shoe. There were no threats of fines this time around, but there was ample chatter about what it meant for a rookie, unproven in the professional game, to ink such a lucrative and high-profile agreement.

Clark has been compared to other greats in basketball. Her shooting echoes Stephen Curry and Sabrina Ionescu. Her floor vision and pinpoint passing remind fans of Sue Bird. Alongside fellow rookie Angel Reese, the two instant-impact players have been compared to Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, whose college matchups and professional meetings bridged the two levels together and helped boost the NBA in the 1980s.

Clark, of course, has a long way to go before amassing a resumé to match Jordan’s six NBA championships and six finals MVPs, five NBA MVP awards and 10 scoring titles. She’s just embarking on her first playoffs as a rookie, leading the WNBA but her effect on the WNBA is already similar to His Airness’ impact on the NBA. Beyond flashing a call-back to Jordan’s classic shrug after big plays, Clark’s impact is reminiscent to Jordan’s in other important ways: mass commercial appeal, national celebrity and the ability to catapult a sport to new heights.

Michael Jordan and Steph Curry. Now Caitlin Clark. 🤷 pic.twitter.com/zKf0jNY3Ma

— DG (@DGHoopsz) April 1, 2023

“This is a culmination of a lot of factors over the course of time,” said Bill Laimbeer, who played against Jordan throughout his 13-year NBA career and later coached more than a decade in the WNBA. “(The NBA and WNBA) kind of mirror each other along the way, from the influx of talent, the rule changes to speed the game up, the name recognition because of TV and the competitive nature.”

Clark and Jordan first became stars in college, leading their home-state universities to NCAA Tournament glory. More than 17 million people tuned into CBS for the 1982 national championships and watched freshman Jordan hit the go-ahead jumper with 17 seconds remaining to lift UNC to a national title. At the time, it was the second-most watched title game broadcast.

Clark, meanwhile, also created a ratings bonanza in women’s college basketball with her logo 3-pointers and clutch plays for Iowa. She headlined the most-watched women’s NCAA Tournament, with Iowa’s 2024 national championship appearance against South Carolina averaging 18.9 million viewers.

But the professional leagues Jordan and Clark entered didn’t have the same proven viewership loyalty as they helped inspire in college.

The rise of Jordan and Clark didn’t occur without strong foundations. There were pro stars before the two arrived: Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, Julius Erving, Bird, Johnson. In the WNBA, Rebecca Lobo, Cheryl Miller, Lisa Leslie, Tamika Catchings, Diana Taurasi, Candace Parker, A’ja Wilson and Breanna Stewart. There were developments in the actual gameplay of both leagues, which created a more exciting product, and changes in the media environment.

Through 1981, ratings dips prompted NBA Finals games to be mostly on tape delay, and the Celtics and Lakers were the most frequently televised games. Viewers eventually began warming up to the league and a new wave of athletes, but it was Jordan who came in and electrified it with his showmanship as the Bulls dominated in the 1990s for peak numbers.

“Because of Michael being in the league, we went from one or two games a week on TV in the ’80s to almost every night there was a game on,” former Cavaliers guard Craig Ehlo told Bleacher Report. “I think the NBA marketing ability for the rest of the teams was beneficial with Michael being in the league. If he never plays, I don’t think they have that power to get the TV deals that they got.”

Clark similarly has sparked unprecedented WNBA fandom. The league has been gaining traction over the years. Yet with Clark, six different league television partners set viewership records this year by airing Fever games, and the WNBA enjoyed its most successful year of viewership across ESPN platforms.

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Clark and Jordan also elevated middling franchises. The Bulls had made the playoffs only twice in nine years before Jordan’s arrival. In the three seasons immediately before he came to town, they were in the bottom half of the NBA in total attendance before he led the Bulls to their dynasty run.

Clark has Indiana back in the playoffs for the first time since 2016, hoping to help the Fever stave off elimination against the Connecticut Sun on Wednesday. With legions of her fans following her, the Fever led the WNBA in home attendance after being in the bottom half of the league the last eight seasons.

Caitlin Clark’s WNBA playoff debut averaged 1.84 million viewers on Sunday—the league’s most-watched playoff game since the 2000 Finals.https://t.co/IW0iXqpJQz pic.twitter.com/w07FP07B96

— Front Office Sports (@FOS) September 24, 2024

“Clark has made a Jordan-esque impact right away,” said Jack McCallum, a Naismith Hall of Fame-inducted sportswriter and former Sports Illustrated reporter who covered the NBA for over three decades. “The NBA had Bird and Magic, and then it had the biggest star in the history of sports come in and throw his weight into it. (Jordan) seemed to bring everybody along with him. A rising tide lifts all boats. I do believe that’s going to happen to the WNBA.”

Salaries might be the most critical way that plays out.

Jordan skipped his senior season at North Carolina and signed a seven-year contract worth $6.3 million with the Bulls. His base salary as a rookie was relatively modest at $455,000, slightly above the league’s average salary but not by much. Clark also elected against returning to Iowa for a final season, signing for the modest rookie salary of $76,535. Like Jordan’s, it is undervalued (according to HerHoopStats, the averaged WNBA salary this season is around $110,000) for what she means to the league.

Nevertheless, in their first seasons, Jordan and Clark demonstrated their true earning potential in the market with landmark endorsement deals. Both are partners with Nike and Gatorade — Jordan as the sports drink brand’s first athlete sponsor in 1984. Perhaps a “Like Clark” ad would be a fitting reprise of Jordan’s famous campaign.

Wilson has curated one-off basketballs and other smaller scale product drops for NBA and WNBA players over the years, but only Jordan and Clark have worked with the brand to build out multi-year collections fully, a company spokesperson said.

Clark seems likely to help drive a WNBA salary boost, much like Jordan did for the NBA. In 1995, after Jordan’s first three-peat, the NBA salary cap jumped from just under $16 million to $23 million — the 44 percent increase marking the largest single year-over-year jump in league history, according to Spotrac. Though WNBA players have yet to see such a spike, this season the league agreed to a landmark television rights deal worth more than $2 billion over 11 years. Their ratings paradigm has shifted with Clark playing in six different network’s record-breaking games this season, and the trickle down effect is likely to result in higher salaries when the next CBA is enacted, perhaps as soon as for the 2026 season.

Clark is still in the infancy of her career. She trails Jordan by six championships and 31,523 points. But another clear phenomenon is apparent.

“What Caitlin Clark has done for the game is generational,” women’s basketball pioneer Nancy Lieberman said on a recent Fever telecast. “As a baller to a baller, I just want to say thank you, to you Caitlin Clark for just lifting our game up. You and so many great players for what you’re doing. You’re going to make all these women multimillionaires one day. Like Tiger did. Like Michael Jordan did.”

(Illustration: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; Photos of Caitlin Clark and Michael Jordan: Andrew D. Bernstein / NBAE via Getty Images,
Jeff Dean / Getty Images)

Chloe Primerano had a choice to make.

Less than two years after making the switch from boys to girls hockey, Primerano was already one of the sport’s best young players, leading her team in scoring and winning Canadian Female Prep High School MVP in her 10th grade debut season. And after her international debut at the 2024 U18 worlds — where she led the tournament in scoring, set a record for points by a defender (16) and was named best defender and tournament MVP — Primerano already needed a new challenge.

She could return to RINK Hockey Academy in Kelowna, B.C., the hockey school that churns out NCAA talent, national team hopefuls and NHL draft picks such as Tij Iginla and Ryder Ritchie, or she could make a highly unusual move for a teenage women’s hockey player: graduate from high school early and start college at 17.

While a move like that is not uncommon in the men’s game — think Macklin Celebrini going to Boston University early — in the women’s game it is an unconventional choice. But for Primerano?

“She had outgrown the league she was playing in,” said Byron Ritchie, the former NHL forward and current skills coach at RINK.

And now, when the University of Minnesota opens its season on Friday, Primerano will be making her college debut a year ahead of schedule as the most highly anticipated rookie in the NCAA.

Last week, she was voted the WCHA preseason rookie of the year by six of eight coaches in the conference. With Primerano and American star Abbey Murphy, Minnesota heads into its season as the No. 2 team in the nation with eyes on making the Frozen Four, which will be hosted at the Gophers’ Ridder Arena.

Primerano is still only 17 years old, but she has already established herself as one of the most promising prospects in women’s hockey. She is dynamic on the blue line with elite skating and edgework and sees the game at a very high level. She was the youngest player invited to the Canadian senior women’s national team training camp in September and — with a good start to her college career — could force herself into consideration for a spot on the 2026 Olympic team.

Amid a wave of top hockey prospects coming out of Western Canada — fellow North Vancouver products Connor Bedard and Celebrini were the No. 1 picks at the NHL Draft in 2023 and 2024, respectively — Primerano is expected to be the next top player to come out of British Columbia, and poised to become one of the best defenders — and players — in the women’s game.

“She has that drive and ability to become one of the greats of the female game,” said Ritchie. “Now, whether she fulfills that potential, that’s going to be up to her.”

Primerano first made headlines in May 2022 when she was drafted by the WHL’s Vancouver Giants (268th overall), becoming the first female skater ever selected in a Canadian Hockey League draft.

At 15 years old — in her ninth-grade season — Primerano was still playing boys hockey for the Burnaby Winter Club in the U15 prep league and finished second in team scoring among defenders. “Chloe’s play in the top U15 league in Canada made her fully deserving of this selection today,” Giants general manager Barclay Parneta said at the time.

Primerano said she was excited to be drafted to the WHL, but she never intended to play there, opting instead to maintain her NCAA eligibility. For top men’s hockey prospects, the CHL — the top major junior men’s hockey league in Canada — or NCAA is typically part of the path to the NHL. For top female players in North America, college hockey is the best route to a professional or international career.

Primerano started playing hockey when she was 4 years old. She was initially on a girls team, but the rink was so far from the family’s home in North Vancouver that her parents put Primerano with boys at a more convenient rink. “We would drive all the way there and (the kids) could barely skate,” her mother, Fiona Primerano, said with a laugh.

When Chloe was 6, the family — including her older brother, Luca, and her father, Joe — joined the North Shore Winter Club, a members-only facility in North Vancouver that has become something of a breeding ground for elite hockey talent. Columbus Blue Jackets winger Kent Johnson has trained at the rink. So have Bedard and Celebrini.

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The 2018-19 North Shore Winterhawks PeeWee team included Primerano, Celebrini and San Jose Sharks third-round pick Carson Wetsch. Growing up around elite players like Celebrini — they use the same offseason coach, Cole Todd — has been impactful for Primerano.

“(Macklin) just works so hard,” she said. “It’s really easy to want to get better when you’re with him because of what he does on the ice.”

Primerano, pictured with Macklin Celebrini, left, and her brother, Luca, is the first female skater to be drafted into the CHL. (Courtesy of the Primerano family)

Typically female players will make the move from boys hockey when body checking is introduced at the U14 level. Additionally, it’s easier to get scouted by college coaches or the national team in girls hockey. But Primerano stuck with it, playing up to Bantam in the top prep U15 league.

“I remember when she was Bantam and she’s in the (top) league against boys and you can see how competitive she is, how dialed in she is, how hard she battled. It’s propelled her,” said Jarome Iginla, the Hockey Hall of Fame forward who coached on the boys side at RINK for three years.

While Primerano never looked out of place, it was hard to know exactly what kind of player she could be when she ultimately made the move to the women’s game. You could see her skillset — she was a good skater, smart with the puck and could make a good first pass out of the D-zone — on display enough to be optimistic about the transition, but when she got to RINK, she was quickly in a class of her own.

“When I switched to girls I thought I had a lot more time and space out there,” Primerano said. “So I kind of just started playing more offensive and took off from there.”

Primerano led her 2022-23 RINK team to the CSSHL championship, and led Team BC to its first-ever win at the Canada Winter Games against tougher competition like Ontario and Quebec — provinces with higher registration numbers than British Columbia, and more national team players, like Caitlin Kraemer and Abby Stonehouse.

“The spotlight seems to shine bright on her … And she’s a kid that definitely rises to the occasion,” said Primerano’s RINK coach Kris Hogg, who also coached Team BC.

When the window opened for college coaches to talk to potential recruits — June 15 heading into a player’s junior year — Primerano was a sought-after commodity. The family limited the calls she took to her top choices but still, the process was “very overwhelming,” Fiona said.

Primerano ultimately chose Minnesota because she “felt at home” when she visited the campus. She had talked to head coach Brad Frost about the possibility of attending Minnesota a year early, given she was ahead in school — she took extra classes online when schools were shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic — but it wasn’t yet the path Primerano was set on taking.

Primerano’s 2018-19 North Shore Winterhawks PeeWee team included Celebrini and Carson Wetsch, who were both drafted by the San Jose Sharks this year. (Courtesy of the Primerano family)

Then, in her junior year, Primerano was on another level. She set CSSHL single-season records in goals (35) and points (89) in 29 games — around three points per game — en route to another league title and MVP. In two seasons at RINK, she finished third all-time in league scoring, and first among defenders.

That year, Primerano lived with the Ritchie family. Every night there was hockey on TV, Primerano was watching — “It’s not the happiest night when there’s no games on,” she said — or in the garage shooting pucks, or stickhandling and working on her game.

“She’s always learning from the best in the game,” said Ritchie, who is also Primerano’s family adviser with CAA Hockey. “She’s not just somebody that goes home and turns it off and doesn’t think about hockey the rest of the night. I think that’s part of what separates her.”

Primerano, who grew up a Vancouver Canucks fan, spends a lot of time reviewing tape of team captain Quinn Hughes — the NHL’s reigning Norris Trophy winner — to try to take pieces of his game into her own.

“His skating is one of the biggest things I look at,” Primerano said. “All the creative stuff he does at the blue line. That’s stuff that I’ve really tried to pick up over the last year. I don’t want to be too straight line, I want to be more creative. It’s just watching what players are doing out there and bringing that into my game.”

For a precocious young athlete, the way Hughes attacks, the creativity he brings to the offensive blue line, is a perfect model.

“She’s actually able to pull off some of the same blue-line maneuvers, some of the same zone exits, zone entries,” Ritchie said. “Because she is that good.”

Primerano’s own playing style can simply be described as dynamic. She is that rare breed of defender who can make something out of nothing.

“There’s players that are elite skaters, there’s players that are elite puck handlers, there’s players that have a really high hockey IQ or they’re goal scorers or they set people up — Chloe is a culmination of all of it,” said Frost. “There’s nothing that we don’t like about Chloe Primerano.”

When Primerano makes her NCAA debut on Friday, she’ll face the challenge she was looking for.

At 17 years old — she won’t turn 18 until January — she will be the youngest player in the league, and she will face bigger and stronger competition on a daily basis. And she will be playing in the WCHA, the most grueling of the five women’s hockey conferences, with powerhouse Wisconsin, reigning champions Ohio State and in-state rival Minnesota-Duluth (who swept its opening series against the Buckeyes last weekend).

But Frost isn’t worried about all that.

“You wouldn’t know she’s 17 versus 18 because of her ability to play,” he said, noting that if Primerano had been born only a few weeks earlier, she’d naturally be in the 2024 class anyway. “As I look at other players that are coming in, she’s just as mature as they are from a physical standpoint. She’s just as mature as them from a personality standpoint.”

Primerano might be good enough for the senior women’s team, but the Canadian braintrust will need to consider what is best for a young player at this point in an Olympic cycle. (Courtesy of CAA Hockey)

There’s certainly going to be a learning curve in the NCAA, and Primerano will need to adjust to not always being on the offensive side of the puck and building on her defensive game. But that’s exactly what she is hoping for: to continue to develop her game.

“I always want to be playing in a league that is going to push me,” Primerano said. “It’ll be tough, but that’s something that I’m looking for. Having the opportunity to go a year early, that’s something I couldn’t say no to.”

In the men’s game a player might go to college early to fast-track their journey to the NHL. But for Primerano, it’s about growing as a player to reach the ultimate goal: the Canadian women’s national team.

“She has nothing really to prove at this U18 level, and going to the college level she can really see what she really needs to work on at that level to continue to grow throughout the Canadian national program,” said Hogg. “Sometimes you gotta dive right in with two feet and then see where everything goes.”

Primerano attended Team Canada’s September training camp that will be used, in part, to pick the roster for the Canada-USA Rivalry series in November and the 2025 world championships. The Canadian braintrust gave Primerano every opportunity to showcase herself, playing on both special teams and pairing her with Jocelyne Larocque, Canada’s long-time top pair defender. And while Primerano might prove to be good enough for the senior team, Canada will also need to consider what is best for a young player at this point in an Olympic cycle, with Milan only 17 months away.

Is it better to elevate her to the senior team and potentially shelter her behind veteran players for the experience? Or let her grow as a player in college and dominate another year at U18 worlds?

The latter would set Primerano up to take the reins after 2026, especially if some veterans opt to retire from the national team. But a solid start in college and a potential look at the Rivalry Series could make her case for the senior team undeniable. It’s not unheard-of for Canada to elevate a young player. While she was a bit older, Sarah Fillier — the former Princeton star and 2024 PWHL No. 1 draft pick — made her world championship debut in 2021 and was one of the top scorers at the 2022 Olympics.

And there’s reason to believe Primerano will be set up for success in her freshman season.

Minnesota has a deep blue line with Finnish national team defender Nelli Laitinen and Team USA’s Sydney Morrow, who transferred from Colgate. Primerano won’t be thrown into college and expected to do everything on her own, though she can be expected to play meaningful minutes and special teams. She’ll have her RINK teammate and fellow freshman defender Gracie Graham in the locker room to ease the transition. But mostly, Primerano’s speed and skating ability in particular will allow her to be impactful at the college level, even as an underage player.

“She’s ready,” said Frost. “She’s elite and is going to be a tremendous freshman.”

(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic. Photos courtesy of the Primerano family)