NYT Connections Sports Edition hints & answers: Sunday, October 25, 2026

Updated: Sunday, October 25, 2026 · Hints reviewed by Omer Liban · New puzzle daily at midnight local time — free from The Athletic. · Puzzle editor: Mark Cooper.

This page has every level of help for the NYT Connections Sports Edition puzzle of Sunday, October 25, 2026: 3 spoiler-free hint tiers that narrow things down step by step, followed by the complete answers with explanations — each behind its own tap-to-reveal card.

Stuck on today's Sports Edition? Same drill as regular Connections: work the tiers below from a single answer per group up to the full explained solution, revealing only as much as you want.

Connections: Sports Edition works exactly like regular Connections — four colour-coded groups from easiest 🟡 yellow to trickiest 🟣 purple — but every category is sports: players, teams, rules, moments. It's made by The Athletic and free to play.

Sports Connections hints (October 25, 2026)

1One answer from each group

Yellow (easiest): one of its answers is “WILD”.
Green (easy): one of its answers is “JAZZ”.
Blue (tricky): one of its answers is “MCINTOSH”.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay): one of its answers is “LAKE”.

2Category hints (no answers)

Yellow (easiest): the theme is “Nhl teams with singular nicknames”.
Green (easy): the theme is “Contains a double z”.
Blue (tricky): the theme is “Famous canadian athletes”.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay): the theme is “Starts of los angeles team names”.

3One full group revealed

Yellow (easiest) — the connection is “Nhl teams with singular nicknames”, and its four answers are: WILD, KRAKEN, MAMMOTH, AVALANCHE.

Sports Connections answers — October 25, 2026

★Today's full Sports Connections answers, explained

Yellow (easiest) — the connection is “Nhl teams with singular nicknames”. The answers: WILD, KRAKEN, MAMMOTH, AVALANCHE.
Green (easy) — the connection is “Contains a double z”. The answers: JAZZ, RIZZUTO, GRIZZLIES, MIZZOU.
Blue (tricky) — the connection is “Famous canadian athletes”. The answers: MCINTOSH, ORR, NASH, VOTTO.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay) — the connection is “Starts of los angeles team names”. The answers: LAKE, GALA, CHAR, CLIP.

The puzzle, explained

The purple group is all about the starts of LA sports team names—LAKE (Lakers), GALA (Galaxies), CHAR (Chargers), and CLIP (Clippers)—which is brutally tricky because none of these words obviously scream "Los Angeles" on their own. The big bait here is MAMMOTH, which probably tempted you since it starts like "LA" phonetically, but it's actually just an NHL team (the Mammoth don't exist, but WILD, KRAKEN, and AVALANCHE are all singular NHL nicknames). RIZZUTO and GRIZZLIES might've also thrown you off since they both contain double-Z sounds, making them feel like they belong in the green group rather than standing alone. And if you were thinking Canadian athletes, NASH and ORR definitely fit, but so do MCINTOSH and VOTTO—so that blue group probably gave you some real decision paralysis before you realized they all share that connection instead.

Next in today's routine: Soccer Connections → · every game's answers on one page. New puzzle daily at midnight local time — free from The Athletic. Bookmark this page for tomorrow's hints. Or play Sports Connections on the official site.

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Sports Connections — common questions

How is Connections Sports Edition different from regular Connections?

Same rules — sort sixteen answers into four colour-coded groups — but every category is sports: players, teams, rules, kits, moments. It's made by The Athletic (the NYT's sports newsroom), it's free, and it lives on The Athletic's site rather than the NYT Games app.

What time does Sports Connections reset?

At midnight in your own local timezone, like Wordle — not at midnight Eastern like regular Connections. Wherever you are, the new puzzle arrives when your clock strikes twelve.

What do the colours mean in Sports Connections?

The same difficulty ladder as regular Connections: yellow is the easiest group, then green, then blue, and purple is the trickiest — often wordplay or a sneaky link between the leftover answers.

Previous Sports Connections puzzles

Full Sports Connections archive (185 puzzles) → · How to play Connections: Sports Edition →