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New York Times
10 hours ago
- Sport
- New York Times
The NHL tried something new with how the 2025 draft worked. It got awkward
For decades, the NHL had a unique approach to its annual draft. While other leagues used a decentralized approach, with teams drafting from various war rooms around North America, the NHL brought everyone to one host city for a days-long celebration of the future. Aside from 2020 and 2021, when COVID forced a fully virtual draft, it's been an everyone-invited event for decades. It was a rare case of hockey doing something cool and unique. Advertisement And so, of course, this year, they said: Nah, let's just do it the way everyone else does. Back in 2023, we reported on the reasons behind the potential change, but we'll summarize here: It was expensive for teams to fly their entire front office and scouting staffs in to the draft, the travel was a pain, the draft floor was too crowded for making trades, and there wasn't enough time to get everyone back home before free agency opened. You could argue all of those complaints are reasonable. You could also point out that absolutely none of them have anything to do with the fans, or the viewers at home. The NHL is ostensibly an entertainment product, but they tend to forget that minor detail roughly (checks notes) all the time. Is saving a few bucks worth it if one of your biggest nights looks worse as a result? Maybe not, but that's only if it looks worse. Maybe it could be fine. Heck, maybe it would even be an improvement — it's not like the old way got rave reviews each and every year. Then again, last year's Sphere experience would be a tough act to follow. I didn't love the change when it was first announced, but I was intrigued, especially after reading Julian's piece about how it would all work. I wanted to give it a fair shot. Here are my thoughts on the good, the bad and everything in between from Friday night's opening round. Gary Bettman still getting booed. Look, go ahead and change the things you think you need to change, but some traditions are sacred. It wasn't much. Call it a smattering. But it was enough to remind you that yes, there were some real fans in attendance, not just the draft prospects themselves. (I think. Wait, did any of the prospects boo Bettman? Because if so, I'm skipping the waiting period and putting them all in the Hall of Fame.) Advertisement Headline fatigue. The first round of the draft isn't always the biggest story of a busy week, but you'd at least like it to be the big news of the day. But by the time things got started on Friday night, hockey fans were already chewing on five major stories that had broken in the hours before. We had a major blockbuster involving two of Friday's first-rounders and Noah Dobson. We had a weird salary dump. We had two of the three biggest names on the UFA board sign extensions, with Sam Bennett and John Tavares both taking discounts to stay put. Oh, and we also got word of a brand-new CBA. By the time the first boos hit Bettman's ears, some fans were probably all hockey newsed out. That would have been bad news, since they still had roughly fourteen hours of the first round to get through. Let's just say it – Bettman was working the room up there. They took away his podium (except for trades, which we'll get to in a minute), meaning he had to free-roam around the stage. That's harder than you think, and he did… OK? I think he did OK. In fact, I think the boss was kind of feeling it out there. The old, awkward Bettman did show up occasionally, including when he had to go back to the same tired 'I love the passion' routine when he got booed. But overall, he's clearly put in some work on the whole public speaking thing. It may have taken him 30 years, and we're basically comparing him to Roger Goodell and Adam Silver, which isn't exactly the world's highest bar. But sure, he cleared it. He even got a genuine chuckle from the 'I'm not that short' line about the mic before one of the Blackhawks' picks. I'm saying nice things about Gary Bettman and I hate it, let's move on. Matthew Schaefer's emotional reaction to going first overall. There wasn't much suspense on the top pick this year, but the moment was still memorable based on Schaefer's tears, as the top pick and his family shared the moment while honoring his mom, Jennifer, who passed away in 2024. It was a touching moment, and the broadcast handled it in a way that gave it room without feeling overboard. Matthew Schaefer goes first overall to the New York Islanders 🧡💙 What a moment for the @ErieOtters defenceman at the #NHLDraft 🥲 — Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) June 27, 2025 Those virtual meetings between the prospects and the front offices that just drafted them, in the area dubbed 'The Draft House.' Yeah, this didn't work. At all. Once Schaefer's emotional moment was done, the rest of the conversations ranged from mildly awkward to borderline painful. Put it this way: Under the old system, the networks never bothered to mic everyone up for those handshake moments that used to happen on the big stage. Now we know why — they're not very interesting. If we keep this format, we can go ahead and scrap that bit. — Dimitri Filipovic (@DimFilipovic) June 27, 2025 I don't think anyone heard about this whole idea and thought, 'That will probably be fascinating, the only people who are more charismatic than hockey players are hockey executives.' But it's worth trying new things. Sometimes they work. Sometimes your audio is all screwed up and echoing, there are weird pauses everywhere, and nothing interesting gets said. Advertisement I realize a lot of planning goes into this sort of thing, but someone should have called an audible after James Hagens had to be told to wave at the Bruins' front office like he was a toddler seeing the pandas at the zoo. The reaction to The Draft House. Man, did you all ever hate this part. (See the replies here for a sampling.) Yes, that counts as a good thing. Hockey fans are never happier than when we're all dunking on something at the same time. It's been a while. I missed you guys. Bring it in. (Realizes you can't hear me because the Zoom is laggy.) OK, never mind, moving on… The celebrity pick announcers. The concept makes sense. We're used to the actual pick announcements being mumbled into a microphone, so contracting out some charisma wasn't the worst idea. Besides, it means a break from Bettman, and maybe even a reminder that there are some cool people out there who like hockey. Did it work? Sometimes. It was an eclectic mix, let's just say. We had a pro wrestler, a yelling golfer, Charles Barkley Zoom-ing in from the smallest room in his unfinished basement, Jerry Bruckheimer being introduced in a way that was clearly designed to trick you into thinking it might be Brad Pitt, the guys who sang that song you liked in 1998, a football player, actors from that movie you liked in 1992, the 'Entourage' guy, the 'cut it out' guy from that sitcom you liked in 1987, and Barry Trotz doing the first Predators picks on his own because there are no famous people in Nashville. But we also had Meredith Gaudreau and Happy Gilmore, so… yeah, ups and downs. 'Number 18, is that Gilmore again?' Happy Gilmore AKA Adam Sandler made the Bruins' pick in the #NHLDraft 😂 🎥 @NHL | @NHLBruins — The Athletic NHL (@TheAthleticNHL) June 28, 2025 The lack of early-round trades. You know what, this one's on me. Every year, there are rumors about top picks being moved, every year I get hyped about it, and every year nothing actually happens. At some point, you either figure it out or you don't, and I've apparently chosen the second option. That said… I mean, this was the year it had to happen, right? You had the Islanders holding not just the first pick, but also a pair of mid-round picks from the Dobson trade, in a draft where a local kid was projected to go early. It was probably too much to hope they might trade down out of the first spot to take James Hagens, but trading back up into the top 10 felt like a gimme. Once Hagens slipped out of the top five, everyone was thinking it. But it didn't happen, with Hagens ultimately going seventh to the Bruins. Advertisement Did the Islanders even try? Almost certainly, but it takes two to tango, and as you may have heard, these trades are really hard. Once the picks start flying, expecting any team to embrace the risk involved in trading out of the top 10 is probably wishful thinking. We should have seen it coming. But remember, we were told that this was part of the reason for the new format — that having some privacy to work on moves away from the prying ears of rival teams might juice the action. It decidedly did not. There were no picks involving players during the draft, and the first trade involving a pick didn't come until the Flyers moved up to 12 in a deal with the Penguins. Which we found out about, thanks to… The Big Red Button. I'm not sure what ESPN viewers saw, but Sportsnet introduced its broadcast with a quick tour. It included a podium on the stage that we were told would be for announcing trades. We also got a glimpse of a large red button, which was not mentioned or explained. As a viewer, you hoped it might be for a trap door that could swing into action if anyone tried to ramble on instead of just making a pick. But no, it turned out to be the 'we have a trade to announce' button, which we finally learned when Kris Letang's kid got to hit it roughly 90 minutes in. We got a horn noise and a quick scoreboard animation, in case you were wondering. It's the sort of thing I usually roll my eyes at, but then my kids tell me that I hate whimsy and fun. Which I absolutely do, for the record. But let's call the Big Red Button a winking nod toward what's often the most exciting part of any draft. We just wish they'd used it more. The drafted players having to high-five their way down a reception line of fellow prospects. As several of you pointed out, they put all the prospects expected to go at the top of the draft near the back of the seating area, meaning they had to work their way through congratulatory hugs and high-fives from their colleagues. A lot of you didn't like that. I didn't mind. To settle the dispute, we'll refer to the self-appointed expert on handshake etiquette and wait for Paul Maurice to weigh in. Advertisement No GMs wasting our time by thanking the host city, congratulating the Stanley Cup winner, and saying hi to their fans back home. We'd seen the league clamp down on the exceedingly annoying preamble in recent years, but this year it was mostly absent other than a brief wobble when Mikael Samuelsson showed up for some reason and tried to slip in a Panthers shoutout. Remember that when somebody tries to tell you that there was nothing good about the broadcast. And consider banning the GMs from talking in future drafts, even if we go back to the old way. Just have them come out and point at a prospect, Tim Murray-style. Montreal native and NBA champion Lu Dort flying all the way out to L.A. to represent the Canadiens, only to have them trade not one but both of their first-round picks. They let him come out and hit the Big Red Button, which I guess is the consolation prize. Also, shoutout to the NHL for apparently deciding to pretend the Dobson trade hadn't happened ten hours earlier so that Dort would have something to do. Did you see the size of that guy? If he wants to press the button, put a pin in the trade announcement and let the man press the button. (Hey, do you think they at least toyed with the idea of treating the Big Red Button the way 'America's Got Talent' does the golden buzzer, with a big dramatic slow-motion build up? No? Yeah, I definitely didn't think about that either, never even watched that show, let's just move on.) Man, that took a while. I don't think we can blame the new format here, since it's not like previous drafts exactly flew by. But Friday's opening round was penciled into the TV schedule for a tedious four hours, and it was clear by the midway point that even that was going to be optimistic. This went on forever, even if you cut out the pause for laughter after Nikki Glaser joked about Brett Hull. Was the new approach an improvement? It was not. But I'll be honest: I didn't hate it as much as some of you seemed to. Of all the things they tried, only the virtual Draft House thing was a total disaster. The other 90 percent of the show was fine. Rarely great, and consistently cringey in that NHL way we're used to by now, but rarely terrible. Advertisement But let's cut right to the question that a lot of fans were wondering about heading into this thing: Would this be both the first and the last of the decentralized drafts, with the concept being a one-and-done? Well… we don't know. And that's good news, in a sense, because the only way we would be able to answer that question with any degree of confidence was if the whole thing was an unmitigated disaster. Seeing it work well enough, if only barely, buys the league a chance to try again next year if they choose. Will they? I kind of doubt it. That's based less on what we saw on Friday and more on what we've heard from Bettman and others in recent weeks. The commissioner has made it clear that he's not exactly a huge fan of the decentralized approach, consistently reminding us that it wasn't his idea, and that he was open to going back to the old way. That sounds noncommittal, and it is. But how many times have fans complained about something like the playoff format or replay review or shootouts or whatever else, only to have Bettman proactively shoot down any hope of anything ever changing? The fact that he's leaving the door open tells me that the writing may already be on the wall here, much like it was back in 2015 when Bettman clearly hated the new compensation rule for coaches and GMs and it was gone within a year. The vibes here felt similar going into Friday. And while we may not have seen anything that would shame the league into immediately reverting to the old way, we certainly didn't get the sort of home run presentation that would have everyone clamoring for one more year. Save the Big Red Button, though. We can keep that.
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Evan Carter's leaping grab
14 Teams Confirmed For 2025-26 Continental Cup The IIHF Continental Cup has announced its field of competitors for the 2025-26 season. The tournament will include 14 teams – down from 20 in each of the last three seasons – and will be staged in three rounds instead of four. 2:38 Now Playing Paused Ad Playing
Forbes
a day ago
- Business
- Forbes
The Psychological Cost Of Scaling A Company Too Quickly Is Huge
In a fast-growing company, roles shift overnight. Rapid growth looks impressive from the outside. New hires, new markets and fresh rounds of funding signal momentum. Inside, though, the experience can feel very different. For the people doing the work, the ones building the plane while it's flying, growth often brings chaos, confusion and exhaustion. Firms often talk about scale as if it's purely a numbers game. Double the revenue, double the team, double the opportunity. What's rarely discussed is the cognitive and emotional weight that kind of pace puts on employees. Behind every milestone are people trying to keep up, working through ambiguity, managing constant change and still somehow expected to perform at their best. When Growth Moves Faster Than Structure In a fast-growing company, roles shift overnight. Systems don't catch up. One day you're leading a team of five, the next you're managing twenty with no training, no processes and no time to pause. Everyone is moving fast but few know where things are going. And that takes a toll. You end up with people making decisions without clarity, bouncing between meetings and firefighting instead of building. It's not just the hours that exhaust them. It's the mental load. Every day becomes a series of judgment calls in grey areas. I've seen leaders try to fix this by encouraging people to embrace the mess or figure it out later. That works until it doesn't. Eventually, the lack of structure turns into friction. Teams burn out. Trust erodes. And the thing that was meant to accelerate progress starts slowing everything down. If you're leading through this, your job isn't to pretend the uncertainty isn't there. It's to put some scaffolding around it. That might mean setting up a temporary governance layer, giving teams clear swim lanes or simply saying what decisions are still up in the air. Clarity doesn't need to be perfect. It just needs to be good enough to anchor people. The Mental Cost of Constant Change One thing you notice in high-growth companies is how often the priorities shift. This quarter it's user growth, next quarter it's margin. Teams get halfway through a project only to be told the focus has moved. And the cycle repeats. At first, people roll with it. They're flexible, they hustle. But over time the message becomes nothing sticks. That's when disengagement creeps in. Why invest energy if the target will move again next week? This isn't just frustrating. It's psychologically draining. People crave some predictability. They want to know their work has a shelf life longer than a sprint cycle. If that's missing, you'll start seeing signs like lower initiative, vague responses in meetings, an uptick in sick days and good people quietly opting out. What helps here is being deliberate about what's stable and what's fluid. Not everything has to be locked down but some things do. Your values, your long-term goals and your decision principles. Say those things often. And when something changes, don't just announce the new plan. Explain what you're letting go of. People can handle change but not when it comes without context. Culture Gets Tested as You Scale When a company is small, culture is something you feel. It lives in how people talk, how decisions get made and how you show up for one another. But when headcount doubles in six months, that shared rhythm disappears unless you work hard to protect it. The early team starts feeling stretched, carrying legacy knowledge no one has time to document. New joiners get dropped into the middle of a fast-moving train with little onboarding. Misunderstandings rise. Tensions too. And the camaraderie that once held everything together starts to fray. This is when culture stops being a vibe and starts becoming a job. If you're a founder or senior leader, you now have to teach it. Not through posters or all-hands slogans but through lived practice. How you run meetings, how you reward people and how you handle feedback. The simplest thing you can do is talk to your people. Not just in performance reviews or town halls but in real conversations. Ask what's unclear. Ask what's changed. And listen. You'll learn more in a 20-minute conversation with a frontline employee than from any metrics dashboard. The Quiet Pressure to Keep Up In fast-growing companies, the tempo creates its own hierarchy. Those who move quickest, stay latest or say yes to everything get noticed. Everyone else wonders if they're doing enough. It happens quietly. Someone skips their holiday. Another answers messages at midnight. Before long it becomes the norm. Not because anyone said so but because no one said otherwise. That's how overwork becomes culture. And once it sets in, it's hard to roll back. The message becomes if you slow down, you get left behind. Leaders set the pace here, whether they mean to or not. If you reply to emails at 3am, your team sees it. If you praise someone for pulling an all-nighter but ignore the one who delivers consistently over time, that sends a message too. So be mindful of the signals you give. Celebrate consistency, not just heroics. Make it safe for people to say no when bandwidth is low. And take your own time off then tell people you did. Your team will follow what you model more than what you mandate. What You Can Do Right Now If you're leading in a company that's scaling quickly, start by checking how your team is really doing. Not in a survey. In a conversation. Ask them what's unclear. What's become harder. What would make their work easier tomorrow. Then look at where people are stretched too thin. Are managers managing or just executing? Are systems lagging behind team growth? Are people making decisions without enough guidance? Those are the pressure points. Next, find one or two simple things you can lock down. A cadence. A shared tool. A weekly ritual. Something that gives people a bit of rhythm in the noise. And finally, remind yourself growth is exciting but it isn't free. There's a cost. That cost often shows up first in the minds and bodies of your people. Recognising that is not a weakness. It is leadership.
The Independent
a day ago
- Sport
- The Independent
Is there extra-time and penalties at the Club World Cup 2025?
The Club World Cup is heating up as the world's best teams prepare to contend in the ever-intense knockout stages. The group stage has concluded, meaning it is boom or bust for teams seeking to become the inaugural champions of the revamped competition in the United States. With close to £100m in prize money up for grabs for the eventual winners, clubs will be desperate to claw their way to the final on July 13 at New York's MetLife Stadium. But to get there, teams will have to fight to the wire - sometimes beyond the standard 90 minutes - to separate each other and ensure their dream of Club World Cup glory stays alive. Here is how extra time and penalties will work in the Club World Cup. Is there extra-time and penalties at the Club World Cup 2025? If the score is level when the full-time whistle is blown in a knockout game, a 30-minute period of extra time - split into two 15-minute halves - will then be played to try and decide a winner. During extra time, teams will be able to make an additional substitution on top of the five they've been allotted for the entire game. If no winner can be found in extra time, a penalty shootout will take place to settle to tie and determine who progresses. Players from each team will take penalties until there is a winner, and if the scores are level after five spot-kicks each, the shootout will go to sudden death. DAZN will be broadcasting each match of the tournament live, including the final, for free in the UK. All users can watch a live stream on television and mobile devices, all they need to do is sign up for the company's DAZN Freemium service, with the option to watch ad-free coverage for £14.99. Users can watch DAZN from anywhere by using the DAZN App on TVs, smartphones and any device with a web browser. Club World Cup schedule ROUND OF 16 Saturday 28 June Match 49: Winners of Group A vs. Runners of Group B (Philadelphia) Match 50: Winners of Group C vs. Runners of Group D (Charlotte) Sunday 29 June Match 51: Winners of Group B vs. Runners of Group A (Atlanta) Match 52: Winners of Group D vs. Runners of Group C (Miami) Monday 30 June Match 53: Winners of Group E vs. Runners of Group F (Charlotte) Match 54: Winners of Group G vs. Runners of Group H (Orlando) Tuesday 1 July Match 55: Winners of Group F vs. Runners of Group E (Atlanta) Match 56: Winners of Group H vs. Runners of Group G (Miami) QUARTER-FINALS Friday 4 July Match 57: Winners of Match 49 vs. Winners of Match 50 (Philadelphia) Match 58: Winners of Match 53 vs. Winners of Match 54 (Orlando) Saturday 5 July Match 59: Winners of Match 51 vs. Winners of Match 52 (Atlanta) Match 60: Winners of Match 55 vs. Winners of Match 56 (East Rutherford) SEMI-FINALS Tuesday 8 July Match 61: Winners of Match 57 vs. Winners of Match 58 (East Rutherford) Wednesday 9 July Match 62: Winners of Match 59 vs. Winners of Match 60 (East Rutherford) FINAL Sunday 13 July
Fast Company
a day ago
- Business
- Fast Company
How to get the growth opportunities you want at work
BY Research tells us that high performers thrive on challenges. Stretch projects help ambitious teammates grow their skills, and cross-team initiatives offer greater visibility. Yet, managers are overwhelmed, often unable to curate the bespoke growth opportunities their teams desire. As a result, 'seeking career growth opportunities' has become the number-one reason people change jobs, according to one survey by Gallup. If you want more out of your job, you're not alone. The good news is that opportunity is possible without plunging into a challenging job market. But it's on you to do the heavy lifting. Instead of waiting for growth opportunities to be served up, start creating them yourself. Here are three tips to get started. Define What a Growth Opportunity Looks Like for You The more specific you can be with the type of opportunity you desire, the more likely you are to get it. It's often helpful to work backward, first identifying the outcome you seek from a growth opportunity, and then considering the viable paths to that outcome. Do you want to improve your technical skills to ensure you stay competitive? Are you focused on elevating your human skills, like leadership and communication? Is your aim to expand your visibility in the organization and develop a stronger network? When you're clear about the endgame, you're better able to identify growth opportunities that align with your desired outcome. You're also more confident in saying no to opportunities that don't sync up. Spell Out the Specifics for Your Manager Most leaders are eager to support your professional development, but they don't have the bandwidth to curate a list of just-stretch-enough options for you. Do the heavy lifting—and make it easy for them to nod along. When you make a request to your boss for organizational resources, a financial investment, or just the agreement that you can prioritize a developmental opportunity, it's on you to spell it out. What's the opportunity? Why are you asking? What do you need from your boss? Take a look at the differences between these two requests. Example B: I've shared with you my desire to move into a managerial role in the next two years. To ensure I'm ready, I'm making a proactive effort to develop my leadership skills. There's a one-day conference next month specifically for leaders in our industry, called X. I would like to attend this conference to elevate my skills, network with like-minded aspiring leaders, and gain insights from other organizations in our space. The cost of attendance is Y, and I'd be out of the office for a full day. I've reviewed the agenda and identified the sessions that I believe will be the most relevant to the future of our organization. Can we discuss this at my one-on-one this week? Example A is cordial and valid. Example B is strategic and ambitious. Connecting your goals to what the business needs adds urgency and validity to your request. Even with a well-crafted request, the answer might be 'no,' especially if your request involves a significant investment of organizational time or money. In that event, don't walk away defeated. Reiterate the growth you'd like to achieve and why, and ask for suggestions or alternative options. Give them time to think, be open to the paths they suggest, and know that often they'll end up saying yes to the original request if you continue to bring it up. Cast a Wide Net Frontline leaders are often stretched thin, managing large teams and their own mountain of deliverables. When your team is under pressure, your personal growth will not be top of mind for your (likely well-intended) leader. To safeguard your career trajectory, cast a wide net for growth opportunities, tapping into HR, other senior leaders, and organizations outside your own. For example, if you heard a senior leader talk about an interesting project at a town hall, reach out and offer to help. If you admire the work someone else did on a particular initiative, ask how you can be a part of the next round. You know your leader, your organization's culture, and the line between 'self-starter' and 'blatant disregard for the chain of command.' If needed, run your reach-outs by your boss first. In some roles, growth opportunities are truly few and far between. Look beyond your organization to challenge your brain: volunteering, industry events, and even hobby-based pursuits will wake up your mind and put you back in the driver's seat. Waiting for a senior leader to tap you on the shoulder and dub you ready for growth opportunities can cost you years of momentum. The power is in your hands to create the opportunities you want in the job you already have.
