Sports

On Saturday against Brentford, Erling Haaland will attempt to do something nobody has managed since 1946.

The Manchester City striker has scored hat-tricks in his previous two Premier League games and if he can get another at the Etihad Stadium against Thomas Frank’s side this weekend, he will join a very exclusive list of players.

One player getting three goals in three consecutive English top-flight matches has only happened four times — and three of them were before 1930.

Here, The Athletic tells the stories of those four occasions, and the men the 24-year-old Norway international is hoping to emulate.

Opponents: Liverpool, Leicester City, West Ham United

Osborne, Tottenham’s centre-forward, played 26 times for them in all competitions in the 1924-25 season… and didn’t score a single goal.

That summer, the offside law was changed — the number of opposition players needed to be in front of the attacker to make them onside was reduced from three to two. Unsurprisingly, this led to higher-scoring matches and more opportunities for Osborne and his fellow forwards (the goals-per-game rate for the 1925-26 English top flight was 3.69, up from 2.58 a season earlier).

The England international (three caps and zero goals at that point) scored twice away against Sheffield United in his first game of that 1925-26 season. Three more goals came in his next 10 matches, ahead of Liverpool’s visit to White Hart Lane on October 24, where the 29-year-old claimed a hat-trick as Tottenham ran out 3-1 winners.

A week later, in their next match, Osborne — who had been born near Cape Town in what is now South Africa — scored another three goals away against Leicester. Tottenham lost that one 5-3, making it the only instance on this list of a player’s hat-trick coming in a defeat.

The following Saturday, November 7, Osborne became the first player in English top-flight history to score a hat-trick in three consecutive games as Tottenham won 4-2 at home against West Ham.

Frank Osborne, second left, at a golf tournament in 1924 (Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix/Getty Images)

Osborne is the only of these four players who didn’t score four goals in at least one of the matches in question and is also the only one who didn’t get a hat-trick against Arsenal as part of their treble of trebles.

He failed to find the net in Tottenham’s next league game against Newcastle United and scored just one more top-flight hat-trick in his career: against Newcastle in January 1928 (four goals).

However, Osborne’s form in 1925-26 — he finished the season with 25 goals in 39 league appearances — did earn him an international recall and he got a hat-trick against Belgium in the May. It was the first time an England player had scored three times in a game since the First World War.

Tom Jennings, for Leeds United in 1926

Opponents: Arsenal, Liverpool, Blackburn Rovers 

Scotsman Jennings scored three hat-tricks in a row to take Leeds from 16th place up to seventh across the early autumn of the 1926-27 season.

The forward joined the Yorkshire club from Scottish side Raith Rovers in 1925 and in his first full season (1925-26), he played every league game, scoring 26 goals.

The then 24-year-old started the 1926-27 season with three goals in seven league matches and then, on September 25, found the net three times against visitors Arsenal as Leeds ran out 4-1 winners. Led by manager Arthur Fairclough, they then travelled to Anfield on October 2 and Jennings put four past Liverpool goalkeeper Arthur Riley, two goals in each half, to help his side win 4-2.

GO DEEPER

The 1934 book that shows most ‘modern’ football complaints have been around for a century

A week later, Jennings got another four-goal haul as Leeds beat Blackburn Rovers 4-1 at Elland Road.

In Leeds’ next league game, away against Leicester, Jennings scored twice but couldn’t quite manage to make it four in a row, as they were beaten 3-2. This remains the closest anyone has come to scoring four consecutive hat-tricks in the English top flight.

Jennings finished that season with 37 goals in all competitions (35 coming in the league). This total has only been bettered twice in Leeds’ history — both times by John Charles (43 in 1953-54 and 39 in 1956-57), though for the first of those seasons, Leeds were in the Second Division.

The club’s good run quickly ended after Jennings’ three hat-tricks though, with Fairclough’s side only winning six of their final 32 league games and getting relegated.

Dixie Dean, for Everton in 1928

Opponents: Burnley, Arsenal, Bolton Wanderers

Arguably the greatest goalscorer in English footballing history, Dean scored 60 times in the 1927-28 First Division for Everton. No other player — before or since — has even found the net 50 times in an English top-flight campaign.

Dixie Dean leading Everton out – and setting a target for Haaland (Barker/Getty Images)

Dean, who only turned 21 in the January of that season, played in 39 of Everton’s league games and scored in 29 of them. He hit seven hat-tricks and his goals helped the club win the title for the first time in 13 years.

He made it to the 60-goal mark by scoring seven times in the final two games of the season — four at Burnley on April 28 in a 5-3 win and then three at home to Arsenal a week later in a 3-3 draw. This meant he finished the campaign with successive hat-tricks.

Then, on the opening day of the 1928-29 season, Everton won 3-2 away against Bolton Wanderers, with Dean scoring all three to make it a hat-trick of hat-tricks. The England international then failed to score against The Wednesday (now Sheffield Wednesday, who would go on to win the title) in Everton’s next match.

This is the only one of the four instances of three consecutive hat-tricks that was spread across two seasons.

Overall, Dean scored a record 30 hat-tricks in the top division of English football. Haaland has eight, so needs another 23 to surpass this mark. Dean averaged a hat-trick every 12.1 games during his top-flight career in England (30 in 362 appearances) and the Norwegian is averaging one every 8.6 matches (eight in 69 games).

Jack Balmer, for Liverpool in 1946

Opponents: Portsmouth, Derby County, Arsenal

The 1946-47 season was the first to be completed in the English League since the outbreak of the Second World War, and its top flight consisted of the same 22 clubs who had been competing in the 1939-40 version when it was abandoned after each team had played three games.

Liverpool went on to win the title for the first time in 24 years, powered by strikers Balmer and Albert Stubbins, who both scored 24 goals in the league. Ten of Balmer’s 24 (42 per cent) came in three consecutive games in the November.

The then 30-year-old — Balmer is the oldest player on this list — scored all three at Anfield in a 3-0 win against Portsmouth on November 9, before hitting four in 17 minutes away to Derby a week later as George Kay’s side triumphed 4-1. Then, on November 23 in a 4-2 home victory against Arsenal, Balmer completed a feat that hasn’t been emulated in the almost 78 years since by scoring a third consecutive hat-trick.

He scored once in the next game away at Blackpool and hit another four goals before Christmas, but after that his form dropped off and from December 25 to the end of the season he scored just four times in 19 league games (after registering 20 in 20 before that date).

These were the only three hat-tricks that Balmer, who played for Liverpool for his entire career from 1935 to 1952, making over 300 appearances, ever scored.

Haaland contributing to his hat-trick against Ipswich (Michael Regan/Getty Images)

Haaland has been in this position before.

Near the start of the 2022-23 Premier League season, his first with City, he scored back-to-back hat-tricks at home against Crystal Palace and Nottingham Forest, but could only find the net once in their next game, away against Aston Villa.

Yet with a rampant City playing Brentford at home on a Saturday at 3pm (Haaland has 17 goals from his 13 league appearances at the Etihad at that kick-off time) there is a genuine possibility he will join Osborne, Jennings, Dean and Balmer.

It would be a remarkable achievement, and one we would be highly unlikely to see again for a very long time.

Over to you, Erling.

GO DEEPER

Erling Haaland is getting even better

(Top photo: Haaland after his hat-trick against West Ham; Catherine Ivill/AMA via Getty Images)

TORONTO — Luis Severino has just finished his pregame work on a sunny Wednesday in Toronto. This was a simple day, catch, as the right-hander prepares for the 29th and most important start of his season, Saturday in Philadelphia.

Severino’s emergence as a reliable option in the Mets’ rotation is one of the main reasons New York’s starting staff has been a strength. The rotation ERA sits, like the Mets themselves, sixth in the National League with 16 games to go.

Severino is slated to start four of those remaining 16 games: twice against the first-place Phillies, once against rival Atlanta and, if needed, in the season finale against first-place Milwaukee. Few Mets loom as critical down the stretch as the rebound candidate who has been everything they could have wanted.

And to this point, this season has been everything Severino could have wanted.

“I haven’t done it in so long,” Severino says, smiling. “It feels really good. It feels really good to compete at this level and be healthy for so long this year.”

To get a better understanding of how Severino works — before a start and within a start — The Athletic sat down with him, scorecard in hand, to go inning by inning, batter by batter through his last start against the Cincinnati Reds. In Sunday’s 3-1 loss, Severino pitched 6 2/3 innings and allowed one run — the 12th quality start of his season.

It’s a window into the veteran’s mind at the most important juncture of the season.

Pregame

Severino previously faced the Reds in his second start of the season, on April 6. In that game, he went five innings, allowing two runs (one earned) on three hits. His main takeaway from that game was the two walks he issued — he remembered it being a higher number — and how he couldn’t issue the same kind of free passes to Cincinnati this time around.

Severino’s prep work for a start involves a lot of video study — “what they do good, what they do bad, the last 10 at-bats against a righty with my similar arm angle,” he said. “I look at the pitch sequences: What are they looking for behind in the count?”

Who are those pitchers with a similar arm angle?

“I’ve got the Phillies next. (Miami’s Edward) Cabrera threw a good game against Philadelphia — seven scoreless innings. So I’ll go to that,” Severino said. “He’s similar to me. He throws hard, his changeup is like a sinker, he’s got a good slider. I’ll go to that guy and see what he did good and why he was successful.”

Severino then blends his scouting report with one from his catcher — it’s Luis Torrens in this start — to create a game plan. Cincinnati presents one specific challenge.

“They have runners,” Severino said. “Almost everybody runs there, so understanding I have to be quick to the plate. Any hit or any double, they’re going to try to score. I have to keep that in mind. I’d rather them hit the ball hard than walk somebody.”

First inning

Jonathan India is the Reds’ leadoff batter. Severino starts him with a fastball, sweeper and sinker in that order. He likes to establish that sinker and sweeper, in particular, right away.

“It’s like a little message to the hitters: Don’t get comfortable at the plate,” he said. “I’ve got a sinker in and also a sweeper away. If I do that from the beginning, then they have a different idea of how to approach me in the second at-bat.”

He catches India looking on a full-count sinker. Next up is Elly De La Cruz, the Reds’ shortstop sure to get down-ballot MVP votes in his first full season in the majors.

“He’s the main guy there,” Severino said. “He’s the guy who’s got power, he can run. We either make good pitches to this guy or even 3-2, we’re not giving up. We’re going to throw a nasty pitch and he either swings or goes to first base. That’s the guy I don’t want to let beat me.”

He doesn’t in the first inning, as Severino retires the side in order.

Second inning

To start the second inning, Severino retires Ty France and Jake Fraley on one pitch each. Does that change how he attacks Santiago Espinal with two outs?

“I’m going after the third hitter right away,” he said. “It’s going to be a strike. The game has changed a lot, but for me, if the first two pitches are two outs, you have to take at least two strikes. That’s an advantage for me because I’m going to go after you.”

Espinal takes a first-pitch fastball strike, fouls off the next pitch and eventually strikes out on a sweeper. Six up, six down on just 20 pitches for Severino.

Third inning

Noelvi Marte leads off the third. He and France are the two Reds in the lineup Severino has never faced before.

“France and Marte have almost the same approach. I would throw them inside and the report was they were not as good against off-speed,” Severino said. “It was just trying to get ahead in the count and finish it with a breaking ball.”

Severino got ahead of Marte 0-2 with sinkers, then threw six consecutive sweepers. The last of them caught the infielder looking.

Next up is Will Benson, whom Severino had beaten consistently with fastballs last matchup until Benson tripled off him in his third at-bat. Against a hitter like Benson, Severino thinks less about the velocity of his fastball than where he locates it.

“The only spot he can hit the ball is down and in, where he has a lot of power,” he said. “If I hit my spot, if I go up and away, that’s a tough place to hit that ball. It’s not about how hard I can throw; it’s about where I can put that ball.”

Benson works a walk and moves to second on a Luke Maile groundout. In Cincinnati’s first at-bat with a runner in scoring position, Severino reaches back for something extra against India. His 1-2 sinker is clocked at 99.5 mph — the hardest pitch he’s thrown all season. India fouls that pitch off then flies out on a 98 mph sinker.

“If I get men on second or third, I don’t know how it comes to me, but I’m able to reach back and throw a little bit harder in those spots,” Severino said.

Indeed, Severino averages nearly a mile per hour more on his fastball when runners are in scoring position this season.

Fourth inning

Severino is now working through the Reds order for a second time. He threw his first slider last inning to India, and in this inning, he introduces both his changeup and his cutter.

“It’s just looking for a pitch they haven’t seen before, more against the lefties,” he said. “I want to show them not to get comfortable at the plate. Our mindset was cutter in and then changeup down and away. If you can get to those two pitches, you’re a really good hitter.”

True to what he said earlier, Severino doesn’t give in on a full-count offering to De La Cruz, walking him with a sweeper. De La Cruz leads the majors in stolen bases, and Severino throws over to first base right away.

“I’m usually really fast to home plate, so just in that situation, I have to be even quicker,” he said. “I know Torrens has a good arm, so I have to give him a chance to throw that runner out.”

De La Cruz runs on a first-pitch cutter, and Torrens nails him at second. The catcher has caught an incredible 13 of 20 runners this season.

“He was in the minor leagues for two months. I don’t know how you can have someone like that in the minor leagues,” Severino said of Torrens. “He’s so valuable for us right now. I don’t have to worry much about who’s running. It’s about making my pitch and trying to be quick and not trying to do something I’m not used to.”

Spencer Steer pops up to Torrens, and Severino gets a comebacker from France. After France made a first-pitch out on a sinker last time, Severino started him off with a sweeper for a strike.

“If you make a first-pitch out, you don’t give me much to do,” he said. “After that, we had everything in our pocket to get him out.”

Fifth inning

Severino runs into his first real jam of the day in the fifth through little fault of his own. Fraley leads off with a duck-snort double that doesn’t even reach the outfield grass on the fly. Espinal follows with a bloop single to right. Two balls hit under 65 mph, and yet it’s first and third with no outs in a scoreless game.

“It’s tough,” Severino said. “For me, it’s like, ‘OK, this happens. I have to go out there and compete. If I get out of this inning with one run, that’s good.’”

With the count 2-2 on Marte, the Mets call for a pickoff throw to first, which Severino executes in the blink of an eye. With the help of video review, they nab Espinal for a huge first out. At that point, Severino gets greedy.

“After that, let’s go for the strikeout now and try to get out of the inning with no runs,” he said.

He does just that, beating Marte again with a two-strike sweeper, though this time swinging. While Severino’s strikeout rate for the season is a pedestrian 20.7 percent (below the league average for a starting pitcher), that number balloons to 26.7 percent with a runner on third and fewer than two outs — when a strikeout is especially important. (Hitters strike out less often in that spot than they do overall.)

Against Benson, he gets whiffs on both a 1-1 sinker and a 1-2 four-seam fastball to end the threat.

That sinker is essentially a new pitch for Severino this year. How does he like to play it off his traditional four-seam fastball?

“Hitters get used to speed really quick. In this game, everybody throws hard,” he said. “So I like to play with the movement.”

Here’s an example: If Severino throws a four-seamer up and the hitter fouls it off, his expectation is that the hitter will adjust his swing to get on top of the high heater — leaving him susceptible to the sinker.

“That’s played well for me this year,” he said.

The sinker also allows him to work inside to righties more consistently.

“It was just a four-seam I was throwing middle-away, middle-away,” he said of his arsenal in the past. “After working with that sinker, I just do the same thing. I throw it middle and it’s going to go in.

“For me, everything now is about location. I don’t have to do much. I don’t have to aim my pitch. Just throw it in the middle and the pitch will do its job.”

Sixth inning

Severino is about to start his third tour of the Reds order in the sixth inning. As with most starters, that’s when Severino has been hit the hardest (.834 OPS against).

The inning starts with Maile, the ninth hitter.

“The main thing is just trying to get the first guy out,” Severino said. “You’ve got to get that guy out because after that, the best three hitters are coming. Get the first guy out, don’t let him get on base for the good part of the lineup.”

After striking out Maile on a sweeper, he surprises India with a 1-2 changeup for the swinging strikeout. This was Severino’s sixth encounter with India this season, and by the time he’d reached 1-2, he’d thrown him 36 pitches in 2024. The 37th was the first changeup. India almost smirks at the mound after swinging through the pitch.

“Torrens called that pitch there; I thought that was an amazing idea,” Severino said. “Nobody was waiting for that pitch there.”

Severino credited both Torrens and Francisco Alvarez for being active participants throughout the game, even when they’re not playing that day. He’s always seeking input from the two of them.

“The communication is the main thing for a pitcher and catcher, and they communicate really well with everybody,” he said. “Those guys do a good job.”

De La Cruz singles and moves to second when another quick pickoff attempt from Severino sails past Pete Alonso at first base. Severino shrugs it off to face Steer.

“He can steal third base, but I knew there’s two outs,” he said. “I just needed to worry about getting this guy out. We threw a changeup to get a fly ball to left field to get out of that inning.”

Seventh inning

The Mets finally break the seal on a two-out RBI single from Starling Marte in the bottom of the sixth. Now with a lead, Severino is facing the middle of the Cincinnati order having thrown 83 pitches.

France leads off with yet another soft hit, an excuse-me bloop to no man’s land between Alonso, Severino and second baseman José Iglesias. The Mets then just miss turning two on Fraley’s first-pitch grounder to first. Fraley moves to second on a wild pitch, but Severino wins a seven-pitch battle with Espinal with a fastball for a swinging strikeout.

Severino just has to get through Noelvi Marte, whom he’s struck out twice, to record seven shutout innings.

Instead, Marte loops a first-pitch sinker down the right-field line to score Fraley.

“That inning there, I would say I was not lucky enough,” Severino said. “I threw a lot of good pitches, I competed there. I know there’s a lot of things I can’t control, but the stuff I can control I try to do a good job with those.”

Manager Carlos Mendoza took the ball from Severino after 97 pitches.

What’s the right-hander thinking as he walks back to the dugout in a 1-1 game?

“About throwing another pitch (to Marte),” he said. “I could have gone with slider or changeup or fastball up and in. Something else. But at the end you can’t do anything about that.”

Postgame

The Reds rallied for two more runs in the ninth inning against Phil Maton to salvage the finale of the three-game series and snap the Mets’ nine-game winning streak. Severino’s final line included 6 2/3 innings, one run on five hits — only one of which was hit even 80 mph — with eight strikeouts and two walks.

“Just give my team a chance to win,” Severino said. “That’s the main thing for a pitcher. If you go out there and compete and give your team a chance to win, that’s really good.”

He’s done that consistently throughout the season, allowing no more than two runs in 16 of his 28 starts. The Mets will continue to lean on him down the stretch.

“Hopefully I can continue that and keep working hard and keep improving,” Severino said. “Hopefully we make the playoffs this year and I can keep showing everybody what kind of pitcher I am.”

(Photo of Luis Severino: Noah K. Murray / Associated Press)

The two-member Pac-12 is starting to rebuild, beginning with four Mountain West schools.

Boise State, San Diego State, Colorado State and Fresno State will join the conference in 2026, the Pac-12 announced on Thursday. The schools will officially join on July 1, 2026.

After conference realignment decimated the Pac-12 and left it with just Oregon State and Washington State, the league had few options. NCAA bylaws provide conferences with a two-year grace period to get back to a minimum of eight members. Adding these four brings the league up to six for the 2026 season, and the momentum of that move could get that to eight or more, including the potential addition of more Mountain West schools, on a quicker timeline.

“For over a century, the Pac-12 Conference has been recognized as a leading brand in intercollegiate athletics. We will continue to pursue bold cutting-edge opportunities for growth and progress, to best serve our member institutions and student-athletes,” Pac-12 commissioner Teresa Gould said. “I am thankful to our board for their efforts to welcome Boise State University, Colorado State University, California State University, Fresno, and San Diego State University to the conference. An exciting new era for the Pac-12 Conference begins today.”

Good morning! It’s a beautiful new day 😎#BackThePac pic.twitter.com/jfIU1Gk22u

— Pac-12 Conference (@pac12) September 12, 2024

It will be an expensive move. Each school will be required to pay a $17 million exit fee for a planned leave more than a year in advance. In addition, the Pac-12/Mountain West football scheduling agreement signed last year requires an additional payment totaling around $43 million for adding four schools. The agreement would have charged no fees if the Pac-12 absorbed all 12 schools.

But the Pac-12 has a war chest valued at least in the high tens of millions of dollars from the departure of 10 former schools and the settlement agreement between the sides. It is likely that would be used to cover at least some of the $111 million in total owed through Mountain West exit fees.

Mountain West commissioner Gloria Nevarez said all schools will be held to conference bylaws and policies.

“Our Board of Directors is meeting to determine our next steps,” Nevarez said.

Statement from Mountain West commissioner Gloria Nevarez on the possibility of losing four members: pic.twitter.com/eLIRl7hH34

— Chris Vannini (@ChrisVannini) September 12, 2024

In addition to the exit fees, the four departing Mountain West schools will forfeit their league payout (around $7-8 million annually). But if the Mountain West gets further raided in realignment, it’s also possible nine of the 12 members could vote to dissolve the conference, which would waive all those fees and save a lot of money.

The four Mountain West schools join a 108-year-old conference with a history, brand and intellectual property it still believes to be valuable. The timing is fortuitous, as the Mountain West’s TV deal runs to 2026, and the belief is they would earn more TV money in a rebuilt Pac-12, without the least-valuable Mountain West schools. Mountain West schools currently earn around $6 million annually per school through its TV deal, second-most among Group of 5 leagues.

The relationship between the Pac-12 and Mountain West got very icy in recent months, as The Athletic has reported. Their attempt to extend the 2024 football scheduling agreement for 2025 fell apart, with money being the main sticking point. The Mountain West as a league felt it had the leverage in the negotiations. Instead, the Pac-12 convinced the Mountain West’s most valuable schools to jump ship.

GO DEEPER

What’s next for Pac-12, Mountain West after missing 2025 scheduling deadline?

The four schools are considered the biggest and most important targets for the Pac-12, with future additions to be hammered out after creating a core. The rebuilt league could stay regional with more Mountain West additions, or try to expand nationally with teams from other Group of 5 conferences. Stanford and Cal remain tied to the ACC on the other side of the country, and Florida State’s and Clemson’s lawsuits with the league show it’s hard to get out (if Stanford and Cal would even want to). But Oregon State and Washington State have long kept an eye on the ACC in case it began to fracture.

Oregon State and Washington State’s only path to the College Football Playoff in 2024 and 2025 is as an at-large bid. In a rebuilt Pac-12, the conference champion would have a shot at one of the five automatic bids provided to conference champions. All that’s been determined for the CFP in 2026 and beyond is that at least five conference champs have a spot, however big the field is, and the Big Ten and SEC will make the most money.

It may not be coincidental that Pac-12 expansion became official this week. Oregon State hosts Oregon on Saturday with the game on Fox, while Washington State and Washington will play each other on Peacock. With the biggest spotlight of the season on the two leftover schools for their rivalry games, the conversation may now switch from being pitied by the country for being left behind in realignment, to a more positive narrative as the potential rebuild begins.

Required reading

(Photo: Kirby Lee / Getty Images)

The question that Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill raised Sunday evening, hours after his face was planted on a Miami street and the knee of a Miami-Dade police officer was planted in his back, continues to echo.

“What if I wasn’t Tyreek Hill?” the five-time All-Pro wide receiver asked.

No doubt, Hill viewed himself as lucky. He left with nothing more than perhaps a few bruises and scrapes after yet another display of excessive force by law enforcement against a Black person. He played in Sunday’s 20-17 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars, and he’ll play again Thursday at Hard Rock Stadium against the Buffalo Bills.

It’s hard to fathom why police brutality against people of color keeps occurring. If it hadn’t happened to Hill, who was pulled from his car to the ground after being stopped for speeding, we may not have ever known it took place. If he weren’t Tyreek Hill, with teammates, an agent and team security coming to his aid, he might have wound up in a jail, a hospital — or in a morgue.

That was Hill’s point. But he also forgot something important during Sunday’s incident near Hard Rock Stadium: That in America, people of color have no margin for error when interacting with police officers. Being a high-profile Black athlete is no different.

This is the land where a cop knelt on a Black man’s neck in the street for more than 9 minutes, killing him, for passing a counterfeit bill. This is the land where a Black woman was shot and killed in her home after she called 911 for help. What would stop them from blowing away a Black man who refuses to keep his tinted window down?

GO DEEPER

Dolphins’ Hill on pregame detainment: ‘Still trying to put it all together’

Miami-Dade police on Monday released body cam footage from the traffic stop. Hill was pulled over by a police officer on a motorcycle for driving an estimated 60 mph in a 40 mph zone, and the scene quickly turned ugly.

One officer — seemingly set off by Hill’s annoyance at being pulled over and his refusal to keep his window down — dragged him out of his car by his head, forced him to the ground while threatening him and then placed him in handcuffs. After moving Hill out of the street and onto the sidewalk, a cop used a chokehold to force Hill to his knees.

An officer on the scene has been placed on administrative duty. Hill has called for the firing of the offending officers. Severe punishment is certainly warranted. Their actions were nothing short of an abuse of power. Rather than work to defuse the situation, the cops seemed hellbent on teaching Hill, who never threatened them, a lesson in respect and submission.

The Dolphins called the officers’ actions “maddening and heartbreaking,” and “overly aggressive and violent” in a statement released Monday.

pic.twitter.com/Wz6mQt3Owc

— Miami Dolphins (@MiamiDolphins) September 10, 2024

Getting stopped while running late to work is frustrating. Hill’s aversion to being recognized and potentially filmed by passers-by is also understandable. But the quickest way to arrive at the stadium without incident would have been to remember that Black people must always remain above reproach in these scenarios.

For generations, Black parents have instructed their children on how to conduct themselves when stopped by the police. Window down. License and registration. Hands in full view. “Yes, sir. No, sir.” Cop an attitude? You better not.

Why couldn’t Hill remember this in the moment? He probably has asked himself that very question since Sunday.

Hill said after Sunday’s game that he wants “to be able to use this platform to figure out a way to flip this and make it a positive on both ends, on my end and then also Miami-Dade, so we can do something positive for the community.”

Wednesday, he took it a step further by acknowledging his faults in the incident.

“My whole life is all about accountability, like how can I get better?” he said to reporters. “I have family members who are cops and we’ve had conversations. Yes, I will say I could’ve been better. I could have let down my window in that instant. But the thing about me is, man, I don’t want attention, I don’t want to be cameras out, phones on me in that moment.

“But at the end of the day, I’m human and I’ve got to follow rules and do what everyone else would do. Now, does that give them the right to beat the dog out of me? Absolutely not, but at the end of the day, I wish I could go back and do things a bit different.”

Body-cam footage from Tyreek Hill’s detainment prior to the Dolphins vs. Jaguars game this past Sunday has surfaced.

via @AndySlaterpic.twitter.com/ClTzhzUMEh

— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) September 9, 2024

It’s encouraging that Hill was able to admit where he was wrong, and that he spoke with family members who work in law enforcement for greater understanding on how he should have responded. But nothing can justify the actions of the officers who forced him into submission.

Hill deserved to have been treated like a human being rather than being dragged out of his car like a dog. Dolphins teammates Calais Campbell and Jonnu Smith soon arrived on the scene and tried to de-escalate the situation. One police officer aggressively threatened them, too, and placed Campbell in handcuffs. Campbell, by the way, won the NFL’s Walter Payton Man of the Year Award in 2019 and the NFLPA’s Alan Page Community Award in 2024.

Eventually cooler heads prevailed and Hill and Campbell were permitted to leave and play in Sunday’s game. Hill had seven receptions for 130 yards and a touchdown in Miami’s win. He celebrated his touchdown by mimicking being handcuffed.

Hill learned the hard way that, fair or not, there’s no margin for error for Black people during encounters with the police. Although unfortunate, Hill’s incident reminded us that police brutality remains an ongoing problem. Perhaps his experience can help others who both look up to him — and look like him — avoid a repeat of what happened Sunday.

(Photo: Rich Storry / Getty Images)

Caitlin Clark, the No. 1 pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft, made the most outward political statement of her young career when she liked music superstar Taylor Swift’s Instagram post on Tuesday endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee for president.

Clark did not publicly endorse Harris but explained to reporters on Wednesday the rationale behind liking Swift’s post.

“I have this amazing platform, so I think the biggest thing would be to just encourage people to register to vote,” Clark said. “That’s the biggest thing I can do with the platform that I have and that’s the same thing Taylor did.”

Clark, 22, stressed the importance of being informed about candidates before deciding who to vote for.

“Continue to educate yourself on the candidates that we have, the policies that they’re supporting – I think that’s the biggest thing you can do,” Clark said.

Clark, who plays for the Indiana Fever, has been guarded when discussing topics outside the game for most of her rookie WNBA season. In June, she denounced her name being used to push agendas of racism and misogyny, calling it “disappointing” and “unacceptable.”

“The women in our league deserve the same amount of respect, so people should not be using my name to push those agendas,” Clark said.

Clark liking Swift’s endorsement of Harris isn’t the first time WNBA players have made political statements. In August 2020, several WNBA players, including Diana Taurasi, wore T-shirts endorsing Georgia Democratic senate candidate Raphael Warnock, who was running against Republican senator Kelly Loeffler, the Atlanta Dream co-owner at the time. During the 2020 WNBA season, players wore warm-up jerseys that read “Black Lives Matter” and “Say Her Name,” raising awareness about racism and police brutality.

As of Thursday, Swift’s Instagram post had over 10 million likes. Clark, the leading rookie scorer in the WNBA, joined a list of high-profile celebrities to like the post, which included Oprah Winfrey and four-time WNBA champion Sue Bird.

(Photo: Dylan Buell / Getty Images)

SAN DIEGO — Last week, I tossed out my plans to be in Washington D.C. for a different NWSL match and booked a last-minute flight to San Diego. I then stood on the field at Snapdragon Stadium, staring through my camera lens at Alex Morgan, the athlete, one more time. I watched every microexpression flicker past, every smile, every time she blinked back tears, and the times she failed to. I pressed the button every time something felt like it could somehow capture the magnitude of the moment, yards away but able to compress the distance between us simply with a twist of the lens.

There was distance too — there had to be — between Alex Morgan, the image, and Alex Morgan, the human.

When Morgan stepped off the pitch in her socks on Sunday, boots in hand, it had only been three days since she had announced her retirement from professional soccer at age 35.

The lack of notice and Morgan’s lengthy video explaining her decision, announcing that she and husband Servando Carrasco are expecting their second child, meant there would be no long farewell tour. Fans would only have days, not months, to contemplate what women’s soccer would look like without Morgan on the field.

Her abrupt retirement set off a scramble, all the emotions of sending off one of the game’s best, grappling to define a legacy — or better yet, the first act. Morgan isn’t going too far, the same way most of her generation of women’s soccer players haven’t either. They are builders. Fighters. Morgan is no different, and she is ready to invest in Act Two.

Morgan in her final game (Meg Linehan/The Athletic)

Morgan was excellent at curating what she presented, and why, for over a decade. She came into the game right as social media changed how people interacted with women’s soccer, from the then-niche #WPSChat to Twitter, then Instagram, then TikTok, allowing players to tell their own stories. A weekly online chat with topics feels quaint now women’s soccer has finally begun to crack mainstream culture (outside of World Cup bumps) over the past few years. Before all that happened, Morgan was the one who had broken through the most.

Part of this was because she, in many ways, fit a stereotypical mold, a pretty, white, ‘girl next door’ who could bang in goals and sell Nikes. But what has made Morgan so fascinating to watch over the past decade was how she wielded that particular image; the way she could stockpile goodwill, recognition and power, then deploy them in pursuit of equal pay, better working conditions and player protections across country and club.

Morgan wasn’t just an image or a mouthpiece for labor-related fights. She dug into policy work and organizing across both the USWNT and NWSL players’ associations. She knew the power of her platform, her image, her name, and how to extend it to others. She knew when to step back, when to step forward, when to stand side-by-side with someone. When Mana Shim and Sinead Farrelly shared their stories of abuse suffered in the NWSL, Morgan put her name on her quotes — not just because she knew that she would be unlikely to suffer retaliation, but because she knew she could help to amplify their voices.

On Sunday, Shim was with Morgan’s family watching her final moments on the field. On the opposite coast only a few hours before, Gotham FC honored Farrelly for her retirement — also out of her own hands, due to the cumulative impact of head injuries sustained throughout her career.

GO DEEPER

Sinead Farrelly retires: ‘I want to share how positive this ending has been’

It was fitting that these three be tied together, one more time.

“It’s just incredible what you can do when you listen to players, when you value players, when you pay players, when players have autonomy over where they want to live and what team they want to play for. The longevity of our careers grows with all of what I just named, and Sinead was a pivotal piece in that,” Morgan said in her post-game press conference on Sunday. “So to share the same retirement date with her, because although we have very different journeys, we fought for the same thing, and the league is in a better place because of her.”

That’s not to say Morgan was all business all the time.

Morgan was sneaky good at being online without actually being online. She knew when a post pointing out an issue could have an impact and she didn’t mind embracing a meme or two. (Did she ever fully come around on the ‘Baby Horse’ nickname? Probably not, but she also ate carrots and fed an actual baby horse on camera for U.S. Soccer content, so there was at least a begrudging acceptance.) And no one enjoyed the challenge of figuring out how many drinks could fit into a new trophy more.

(Meg Linehan/The Athletic)

But be the face of anything, and there’s bound to be consequences.

In her farewell speech, Morgan thanked fans for criticizing her. For years, teams sold tickets off Morgan’s fame, and it worked — to the chagrin of fans of her opponents at times. She could kick up entire news cycles by deciding to play overseas as people questioned what it meant for the NWSL, first with Lyon in France then a brief stint with Tottenham Hotspur during the height of the pandemic. (As we found out, it meant little for NWSL, but Spurs players did wind up with better training conditions thanks to Morgan.)

While Morgan wasn’t alone in getting deals and building a following, she was one of the best.

Fortunately for Morgan, she was also pretty good at soccer. Some of her best memories, she said before the game on Friday, were from winning. Winning offered a respite from the weight of the work.

“You’re on auto drive. Like you feel when you have the blinders on and you’re just looking forward,” Morgan said. With winning, came celebrations. With celebrations, humanity:

“You get to be human again, you’re not just an athlete. That’s the best part. We’re all humans, and we all have emotions, and we all have vulnerabilities. And in sports, a lot of times you’re so shut off from that, you’re so disconnected from your emotions, from the real world, because you’re so driven.”

Morgan said sometimes she felt like she hadn’t smiled for weeks at a time — something she didn’t realize until after the end had come.

Those moments when she could smile and celebrate, the ticker tape parades down Broadway in New York City, were when she felt most human. Not, as she said on Friday, “this robotic thing on this platform. But I’m a sister, I’m a daughter, I’m a friend.”

On Sunday, Morgan finally had a moment for those two worlds to collide, to be an athlete and more. To have her daughter, Charlie, with her for the walkouts and anthem, and to stand with her family on the pitch and soak in all the sounds of the adoring San Diego crowd, scattered with folks who had traveled on short notice from all over the country.

“There have been so many incredible moments, but this one, this last moment I share on the field with you, I will cherish forever,” Morgan said, having mostly succeeded at keeping the tears at bay. “Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Thank you.”

(Top photo: Jose Breton / Pics Action / NurPhoto; design: Dan Goldfarb)

Robert Kraft’s candidacy for the Pro Football Hall of Fame has become a sort of annual tradition throughout New England, not unlike Opening Day at Fenway Park and Marathon Monday.

And now, thanks to Don Van Natta Jr.’s exhaustively reported piece at ESPN, the entire world of football has been invited to ponder the mystery of why Kraft has been sitting by the phone all these years, waiting for that life-changing call from Canton, Ohio.

Does Kraft belong in the Hall of Fame?

Of course he does.

Let’s get this out of the way: He should have been inducted years ago. As I’ve written before, Kraft would possess Canton bona fides even if the six Super Bowl championships were removed from his resume. Kraft’s business acumen, combined with sturdy Boston roots, his status as a longtime Patriots season ticket holder and a lingering nostalgia for the old Boston Braves baseball team that moved to Milwaukee when he was just 11 years old, inspired him to buy the team lest it be whisked off to St. Louis by the previous owner, the late James Busch Orthwein. Remember, ground was broken for what would be the privately funded Gillette Stadium in the spring of 2000 before Bill Belichick ever coached a game for the Patriots, before Tom Brady threw his first NFL pass.

No need to revisit all that. A better question for today is why we’re even having this discussion. The easy answer is because of the Van Natta Jr. piece, which oozes with backroom lobbying, petty jealousies and a depth chart of owners who’ve already been enshrined. But we’re also talking about it because that’s precisely what the NFL wants, thanks to what I like to call the Owner Glorification Project, which is ceaseless and well-crafted.

The NFL’s marketing department is a franchise unto itself, and over the years it’s been a bigger winner than the Patriots, Cowboys and Steelers combined. Everything from the scouting combine to the schedule release has been turned into must-see TV. And whereas the draft was once just a bunch of guys locked away in a hotel function room, now it’s a glitzy prime-time event that doesn’t begin until after a famous performer has belted out the national anthem.

No, the NFL didn’t draw it up so that on a sunny September morning we’d be debating why Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is in the Hall of Fame and why Robert Kraft is not. And yet here we are.

The NFL is in the business of selling football. But like any successful retail establishment, its shelves are stocked with an array of products. It markets its players, its coaches … and, yes, absolutely, its owners. The telecasts of most games are barely underway when we get the obligatory shot of the owner’s box, often accompanied by a glowing testimonial from the play-by-play barker. It seems every touchdown includes a quick cutaway shot of the owner. When the clock is winding down and victory is assured, we get another cutaway shot.

This doesn’t happen in the other sports. Anyway, not to the degree it happens in the NFL. There are exceptions, of course. There’s Mark Cuban in the NBA, but, come on, those high-rollers have floor seats. You can’t not see them. The late George Steinbrenner, longtime owner of the Yankees, also comes to mind. His reckless trades, his obsession with being on the back page of the New York tabloids, his endless battles with manager Billy Martin transformed him into a media star. He hosted “Saturday Night Live.” He did a Miller Lite ad. (With Billy Martin, of course.) He was a parodied fixture on “Seinfeld.” God rest him, George was fun.

The NFL’s Owner Glorification Project has been going on for years. The first time it really hit me in the face, and with a frying pan, was Dec. 3, 2007, when the 11-0 Patriots played the Baltimore Ravens in an edition of “Monday Night Football” at M&T Bank Stadium. It looked like the 4-7 Ravens were going to pull off an upset, which would have ended New England’s bid for an undefeated season.

All seemed lost for the Patriots late in the fourth quarter, and yet they emerged with a 27-24 victory — partly because the Ravens unraveled but also because Brady and Belichick were in their prime. But as ESPN would have us believe, the Pats also had a secret weapon: Robert Kraft.

Let’s break down the tape, beginning with 2:22 remaining. Brady picked up 2 yards for a first down at the Baltimore 39, and that’s when we got a cutaway shot of Kraft in the owner’s box, looking rather splendid in a dark suit, yellow tie and his customary powder blue shirt with white collar.

We do not get a cutaway shot of Kraft following Brady’s incomplete pass to tight end Ben Watson leading into the two-minute warning, but it was right back to the owner’s box after Brady, under pressure, threw the ball away.

Brady then connected with Kevin Faulk for 9 yards, setting up a fourth-and-1 at the Baltimore 30. It’s here that Brady was stopped short of a first down, but it’s also here that the play was nullified after it was revealed that the Ravens, in the person of defensive coordinator Rex Ryan, called for a timeout before the ball was snapped. The Pats then got pushed back 5 yards on a false start, but Brady saved the day with a 12-yard run. Cutaway shot of Kraft!

The Pats picked up an additional 5 yards due to an illegal contact call on the Ravens’ Samari Rolle, and then it was Faulk up the middle for 5 yards to the Baltimore 13 with 1:06 remaining. Next, Brady threw a short pass that was batted into the air but fell incomplete. Under pressure in his next pass attempt, Brady threw a short pass to nobody. We then got our fourth cutaway shot of Kraft, with Mike Tirico telling viewers, “So Bob Kraft, the owner, who’s put together the Bill Belichick masterpiece plan, executed to perfection on the field by Brady, who’s having his toughest night of the season …”

So Kraft was part of the game now. He was doing the thinking, fighting for the fans. His fight was your fight.

On fourth-and-5 at the Baltimore 13 with 55 seconds remaining, Brady’s short pass to Watson was incomplete. But look, a holding call on the Ravens’ Jamaine Winborne! Gifted yet another first down, the Patriots took the lead on Brady’s 8-yard touchdown pass to Jabar Gaffney, followed by a quick cutaway to Kraft with his hands clasped together.

Tirico: “26-24, and Kraft is thinking, did he get inbounds with possession …”

Gaffney did get in-bounds with possession. Touchdown. Extra point by Stephen Gostkowski. Next thing you know, Robert Kraft is on the field for the game’s last seconds, as evidenced by cutaway shot No. 6. The Ravens mounted a last-ditch effort. Kyle Boller’s Hail Mary to Mark Clayton was complete at the 3-yard line but with no time on the clock. Patriots 27, Ravens 24. And six cutaway shots of the owner over the last 2 minutes, 22 seconds.

It’s fine that the NFL wants to promote its owners, from what they’ve done to build their teams to what they’ve contributed in the community. And Kraft, as much as anybody, has been a longtime philanthropic good-deed doer. No debate there.

But the NFL has puffed up its owners to a degree that it’s as if they’re on a par with the players and coaches. It’s enough to make one wonder if they all believe they should be in the Hall of Fame.

(Photo: Maddie Meyer / Getty Images)

For 14 seconds, Jordan Chiles paused and looked down to collect her thoughts and emotions.

The question — about what Chiles felt she lost when the International Olympic Committee stripped her of her bronze medal in the Olympic women’s gymnastics floor exercise — forced her to stop mid-answer. The audience at the Forbes Power Women’s Summit in New York applauded her as she regrouped and held the microphone back up to her mouth.

Holding back tears, Chiles said she lost more than a bronze medal through the controversy that dominated the end of last month’s Paris Games. The controversy “wasn’t about the medal,” she said, but other realities that made her feel “stripped.”

“The biggest thing that was taken from me was the recognition of who I was, not just my sport, but the person I am,” Chiles said.

“It’s about my skin color,” Chiles added. “It’s about the fact there were things that have led up to this position of being an athlete.”

The on-stage interview Wednesday — which occurred before Chiles appeared at MTV’s Video Music Awards at night — marked the gymnast’s most extensive comments since the IOC said it would reallocate Chiles’ bronze to Romania’s Ana Bărbosu following an appeal by the Romanian Gymnastics Federation.

At the floor final on Aug. 5, Chiles originally finished fifth but rose to third after her coach, Cecile Landi, submitted a successful inquiry to raise her score by one-tenth of a point. Five days later, the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that Landi’s inquiry should be invalidated because it came four seconds after the one-minute window for such an appeal. After the ruling, the International Gymnastics Federation dropped Chiles to fifth, and the IOC reallocated the medal. USA Gymnastics has said it is appealing the CAS decision to the Swiss Federal Tribunal.

Chiles said she felt “left in the dark” and unsupported during the controversy. She felt her voice wasn’t heard during the appeal process and compared her emotions to 2018, when she said an emotionally and verbally abusive coach caused her to lose her love for gymnastics.

“No one was listening to the fact that there are things that we have in place,” Chiles said. “There are things that we have that should’ve been seen but weren’t taken for realization.”

“The biggest thing that was taken from me was the recognition of who I was, not just my sport, but the person I am.”

Olympic Gymnast @ChilesJordan spoke with @MoiraForbes about being stripped of her bronze medal at the 2024 #PowerWomensSummit. https://t.co/gRF3MBW6J9 pic.twitter.com/Fjett19aDY

— ForbesWomen (@ForbesWomen) September 11, 2024

USA Gymnastics has argued that it has video evidence showing Landi made the appeal 47 seconds after Chiles’ score was posted, 13 seconds before the inquiry window closed, and that it did not have enough time to properly make its case to CAS.

Chiles previously referred to the decision as “unjust.”

“(It) comes as a significant blow, not just to me, but to everyone who has championed my journey,” Chiles said in a post on X on Aug. 15. “To add to the heartbreak, the unprompted racially driven attacks on social media are wrong and extremely hurtful.”

Almost a month later, Chiles maintains that she and her coach followed the rules and did “everything that was totally and completely right” in the floor exercise competition.

“I made history and I will always continue to make history,” said Chiles, who won gold in the Olympic women’s team competition.

Chiles, who will return to UCLA for the upcoming college gymnastics season, received a bronze clock at the VMAs as a gift from Flavor Flav, who promised to make her one after her medal was stripped.

Chiles receives a bronze clock from Flavor Flav on Wednesday. (Noam Galai / Getty Images for MTV)

Required reading

(Photo: Steven Ferdman / Getty Images)

LAS VEGAS — Four of the past five Stanley Cup championship teams have come from states that don’t collect state income taxes — and seven of the past 10 finalists.

Those runs, by the Florida Panthers, Tampa Bay Lightning, Vegas Golden Knights and Dallas Stars, have understandably sparked a debate over whether the teams involved have an unfair advantage in signing players at below-market rates.

In many cases, players signing in those states — Florida, Tennessee, Texas, Nevada and Washington are among the states that deduct no further income tax than the federal taxes — would lose millions of dollars over the lives of their contracts if they played north of the border or in high-income-tax states such as California, New York, New Jersey and Minnesota.

The NHL is keeping an eye on the situation.

In a recent poll of fans by The Athletic, 84.6 percent of 14,066 respondents felt that teams in no-state-income-tax states have an advantage. Of that, 42.8 percent feel changes need to be made to even the playing field, 41.5 percent feel it’s not a significant enough advantage to warrant complex changes and 14.7 percent feel the issue is overblown.

GO DEEPER

NHL fan poll results: Expansion debate, LTIR rule changes and more

“It’s an issue that comes up from time to time in our room at the board level and general managers level,” NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said last month at the NHL’s European player media tour in Prague. “There are no easy fixes. It’s not like we can just pick from Column A and fix the problem overnight. Players make decisions on where they want to play for a variety of reasons. Their bottom line is one of them, but the quality of life and the communities they live in is probably more important.”

Daly echoed that sentiment Tuesday at the NHL’s North American player media tour in Las Vegas. He said while it’s too early to determine if this is something that may have to be addressed, he has talked to the NHL Players’ Association about the subject and the mutual feeling is that leveling the playing field would be too complicated.

For instance, even if the league systematically adjusted the cap ceiling for teams in no-state-income-tax states, what would happen if a player was traded or sent to the minors? Also, if it was deemed that a player was willing to sign a “hometown discount” contract at lower than what he could have received elsewhere, how problematic would it be to try to determine how much of a discount they took?

The NHLPA, so far, doesn’t see this as much of a problem. Executive director Marty Walsh met with the two dozen players who attended the media tour in Prague and explained this would be a complicated issue to fix. Plus, they don’t see this being a debate in other leagues.

As Daly said, “This is not new. This has all existed over the course of time.”

But some players do see a need for action.

“They have to find a way to tweak it, honestly,” Ottawa Senators forward Shane Pinto said Tuesday. “If you look at all these free agents, you don’t blame them for going down south. It’s just what it is, and it’s best for their families and taxes and lifestyle-wise. But I do think they have to find a way, especially for the Canadian teams. They’ve got to overpay guys to come to Canada every time, and that messes up with the cap. I think they do have to find a way to try to just even it out.

“I know it’s not easy because it’s been like that forever, but I think it’d be nice to have an even playing field.”

To be fair, few were complaining about the lack of state income taxes in Florida when the Tampa Bay Lightning were a doormat in the 1990s. Few brought this up when the Florida Panthers didn’t make the playoffs from 2000 to 2011 and didn’t advance past the first round from 1996 to 2022.

“I think every place certainly has its advantages, whether it’s (lifestyle), and taxes is certainly a part of it,” said Nashville Predators star Filip Forsberg, whose no-state-income-tax team had a banner summer by signing Juuse Saros to an eight-year extension and Steven Stamkos, Jonathan Marchessault and Brady Skjei to contracts totaling more than $166 million. “At the end of the day, that does play quite a bit of difference on our salary. It’s a fair point. I’m not disagreeing with it.

“It’s above my pay grade whether to decide if it’s right or wrong.”

Defenseman MacKenzie Weegar signed an eight-year, $50 million contract with the Calgary Flames in 2022. He previously played in Florida, acquired along with Jonathan Huberdeau in the Matthew Tkachuk blockbuster.

Alberta has a relatively low income-tax rate among Canadian provinces. Still, according to the Turbo Tax and Smart Asset websites, Weegar would be making approximately $950,000 more on his current $6.25 million a year contract if he were being paid in Florida.

He’s not bothered by that. But he does think it’d be nice if the league and players’ union could find a mechanism to even things out in the next collective bargaining agreement.

“You definitely feel like it might pull some other guys down south to those teams,” Weegar said Wednesday. “So there could be something in the next CBA to work something out. But ultimately, the Tampas, Florida, you look at Nashville, the teams are winning. That’s what really pulls people in. The New Yorks and Calgary, if we start winning, nobody really cares about taxes.

“The contracts are already big enough. You don’t really notice the tax too, too much. You still living pretty comfortably. So I’d say, start winning, you’ll get your guys to come in, and your free agents that want to play there.”

Like Stamkos and Marchessault going from Tampa Bay and Las Vegas, respectively, to Nashville, defenseman Brandon Montour went from no-state-income-tax state to no-state-income-tax state. A day after celebrating winning the Stanley Cup during a parade on A1A in Ft. Lauderdale, Montour signed a seven-year, $50 million contract with the Seattle Kraken.

He said taxes were not the predominant reason in his decision.

“You can’t say money’s not a factor,” Montour said Wednesday. “But for me, that wasn’t what we were chasing. We had places that were the highest tax that we were considering, as well. I played in California. I played in New York. Obviously, the paychecks look a little nicer when you’re in Florida and Seattle. But it wasn’t a thing that we were focused on.

“It was trying to find something for our lifestyle and our family to set a spot and call home.”

Montour tried to grasp how the league and union could even address the situation.

“What do you do, like take a percentage off the cap?” he said. “Like if Florida signed somebody that was 10 million bucks, they’d take a percentage or 2 percent off the cap or something? I don’t really know what they would possibly be able to do.”

Montour said every player has different reasons to sign in different places, and there are many high-income-tax areas that are appealing. He thinks this is only a debate because these teams are in a cycle of winning.

“There are just too many variables to really control,” Daly said, “including the fact that there are some markets that are very highly desirable for players that have kind of the highest tax rates in the world. Yet there are other opportunities, other things, that make those markets attractive to players.

“So I just think there’s so much that goes into the equation of where a player wants to play, what he’s willing to take to play there. And a lot of that has to do with team chemistry and how teams are constructed and how the player sees himself fitting into the team in terms of their needs. And so to account for all those variables, I think it’ll be a very difficult exercise.

“Having said that, obviously there’s chatter out there, specifically in the Canadian media, that the Canadian franchises are disadvantaged. We take that chatter seriously and we always look for ways to make the system better. I just don’t have any obvious answers to it.”

Daly was asked if he could envision a scenario where teams in Florida, Vegas, Nashville, Dallas or Seattle have a lower cap ceiling than other teams. He said, “I don’t think we could ever have a different cap for different teams, even though we kind of do in some respects with respect to how the CBA works and bonus overages and the like. So I suppose maybe there’s a formula that you could think of that way.

“I have other ideas that I put ahead of that one.”

Asked if he’d share those, Daly laughed: “No.”

“Look, there are some crude ways you can try to make adjustments to account for it,” Daly said. “I don’t think this issue is the level of kind of trying to push something through, particularly without really giving it some advanced, thorough thought and running it through all the potential channels. I think sometimes when you rush to do something based on chatter, you kind of step into a hole sometimes and the unintended consequences kind of bear their heads.

“We’ll continue to monitor it. If we can make it better, we will. I mean, I could get proven wrong on that. If we have the next 10 years similar to the last five, then maybe it’s something that needs to be addressed. But at this stage, on the basis of a couple summers, I’m not really running to get there.”

That’s fine with Radko Gudas.

The Anaheim Ducks defenseman pays 13 percent in state income taxes in California, compared to zero percent when he played with the Panthers. Yet, Gudas said succinctly, “I don’t think the NHL should be stepping into tax problems.”

(Photo of Matthew Tkachuk at the Florida Panthers’ Stanley Cup rally: Rich Storry / Getty Images)