**Summary of the Recent NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle**
The New York Times’ popular puzzle series, Connections, has inspired a special sports-themed edition, published by The Athletic. While the standard Connections appears in the NYT Games app, the Sports Edition is available exclusively through The Athletic’s platform or can be played for free online. This edition challenges players’ breadth of sports knowledge by grouping together four related words or phrases in each round, often drawing from a wide range of teams, venues, and sports traditions.
**Overview of the Puzzle Structure**
Each day, the Connections: Sports Edition puzzle presents players with sixteen words or phrases. The objective is to sort them into four groups of four, where each group is linked by a hidden theme. These themes can range from the straightforward to the highly obscure, testing not just general sports knowledge, but also familiarity with specific leagues, team nicknames, stadium features, or even wordplay involving player names.
Hints are provided for each grouping, ranked from easiest (yellow) to hardest (purple). Sports fans of all stripes may find certain categories easier based on their own expertise. For example, a hockey enthusiast might quickly spot the group relating to Canadian NHL teams, while a baseball fan would be more likely to recognize iconic ballpark features.
**Nov. 12, 2025 Puzzle Themes and Solutions**
The most recent puzzle, dated November 12, 2025, offered a diverse set of themes:
- **Yellow Group (Easiest): Canadian NHL Teams—Minus the 'S'** - *Hint*: Great White North. - This group required players to identify the singular forms of Canadian National Hockey League team names. The answers were: - Canuck (Vancouver Canucks) - Jet (Winnipeg Jets) - Maple Leaf (Toronto Maple Leafs) - Oiler (Edmonton Oilers) - Removing the plural “s” from these team names revealed the group’s unifying theme.
- **Green Group: Major League Baseball Stadium Landmarks** - *Hint*: Famous baseball places. - This category tested knowledge of famous features associated with baseball stadiums: - Green Monster (Fenway Park’s iconic left-field wall) - Home Run Apple (the rising apple in New York’s Citi Field and Shea Stadium) - McCovey Cove (the waters beyond San Francisco’s Oracle Park) - Monument Park (the Yankees’ centerfield tribute area) - These are all renowned landmarks that serve as touchstones for baseball fans.
- **Blue Group: College Conferences** - *Hint*: Alma mater groups. - This group focused on the names of collegiate athletic conferences: - Ivy (Ivy League) - Missouri Valley (Missouri Valley Conference) - Patriot (Patriot League) - Sun Belt (Sun Belt Conference) - Anyone familiar with NCAA sports would have a leg up with this category.
- **Purple Group (