NYT Connections (Sports Edition) Hints and Answers — Teams, Trivia, and a “Hoops” Twist

Today’s Connections Sports Edition is a sports-fan’s puzzle with a few detours into geography and history. The good news: once you lock onto the right category style—league names, location cues, and basketball references—the rest starts falling into place.

The challenge is mostly in the purple group, which uses a “starts with” pattern tied to a specific basketball Hall of Famer. If you’re stuck, use the group hints below to triangulate each theme without jumping straight to the final answers.

Hints

Yellow (easiest): The Great White North is doing the talking here—think Canadian NHL franchises.

Green: If you know the route to San Jose, you can probably nail this one. It’s about teams that play there (or are tied closely to that city).

Blue: Colorado Rockies all-stars is the nudge. The names are connected to the franchise, but in a historical, “greatest hits” way.

Purple (toughest): Hoops stars, specifically a set of words that begin with the same surname as a Basketball Hall of Famer. One name should unlock the whole set.

Answers

Yellow group (Canadian NHL teams): Canucks, Flames, Jets, Oilers.

Green group (Teams that play in San Jose): Bay FC, Earthquakes, San Jose State, Sharks.

Blue group (Colorado Rockies all-stars, historically): Arenado, Story, Tulowitzki, Walker.

Purple group (Starts with a basketball Hall of Famer): Binghamton, Birdman, Nashville, West Side.

If you got the purple category quickly, you likely spotted the “starts with” construction and recognized the Hall of Famer that ties those last names together. If not, that’s a classic Connections move: once one proper noun is identified, the rest become surprisingly obvious.