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Jon Moxley and Darby Allin – Dynamite 10/15/25

I really appreciate AEW trying something different here with Mox and Darby having this prison-type sitdown behind the glass.

When Mox first started talking, you could see Darbyâ€s reflection in the glass and I thought that was a really cool visual. I also liked Mox starting off the conversation by asking, “What are we going to do here?†That line struck me as a guy who is at the end of his rope with Darby and is still trying to figure out how all this is going to end.

I also liked Darby admitting he thinks about joining the Death Riders every day but then thinks about how Mox turned his back on Bryan Danielson, and Darby saying to Mox, “Why would I want to go to war with someone who would stab his brother in the back?†Mox also had a line about chasing ghosts and how it never ends well. I thought that was a good look into Moxâ€s mentality and how heâ€s not trying to please anyone anymore.

I really loved everything about this sit down, until Pac came into the room with Darby and attacked him. I just feel like the attack was over-the-top, and Mox and Darby had already done enough with their words to really get their motives across. It doesnâ€t always have to end with the over-the-top violence and blood.

Overall, though, this was great work between Mox and Darby, and I really loved AEW trying something different with the glass separating them.

With Darby making Moxley quit at WrestleDream, you would think there needs to be a change in leadership for the Death Riders, right? When your leader has now quit to both “Hangman” Adam Page and now to Darby Allin, his leadership must come into question. Iâ€m just not sure who would take over the Death Riders, though.

I donâ€t think any of the current Death Riders are compelling enough to take over the leadership of the group. Do the Death Riders turn on Mox and go with Darby? Or is there a wildcard who comes in to take over the group? Iâ€m interested to see what happens on Dynamite this week.

Toni Storm and Kris Statlander with Renee Paquette – Dynamite 10/15/25

I thought the sit down with Toni Storm and Kris Statlander was well done this week, and I liked them going to the ring right after the sit down portion.

Statlander still needs to pick a lane with her character and go with it, but I thought this sitdown between the two helped push forward the respect they have for each other.

Storm as always had some great lines in this. I liked when she told Statlander, “I donâ€t know who I am without the title, but darling who the hell are you?†(I think we are all thinking that right now with Statlander)

Statlander came out of the gates strong the first two weeks after her shocking title win, I thought, but it’s clear they are still trying to figure out what her character is. Iâ€m worried that they are just going to pull the trigger and put this Womenâ€s World Title on Mercedes Moné at Full Gear.

When Storm and Statlander got to the ring to fight, I really loved the spot where they both got on their knees and dared the other one to hit them with the belt.

What I appreciate the most with Toni Storm is that her rivalries are never boring. There is always a layered story that comes with it and the promos leading up to the eventual match with her opponent are always entertaining. Sheâ€s been the MVP of AEW for a long time, in my opinion.

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Honorable Mentions

Callis Family Dinner – Dynamite 10/15/25

Iâ€m putting this here solely for the fact Kazuchika Okada shut off the TV when Komosuke Takeshita was on it. “I hit the wrong button†was such a good line. Iâ€m also including Don Callis introducing Hechicero in the proceeding match after this promo. When Callis starts doing the hand motionâ€s that Hechicero does, it’s so ridiculous and funny.

The Acclaimed? Maybe… – Collision 10/15/25

I know a lot of people, including me, think breaking up The Acclaimed to begin with was a terrible move. Almost as terrible as allowing Billy Gunn to stick around with them as long as he did.

I am also someone who then really didnâ€t have an interest in seeing them get back together.

You really have to give Max Castor credit here, though, for getting his singles character over and lighting the spark for this Acclaimed reunion to have any life.

No offense to Anthony Bowens, but his singles career in AEW was dead on arrival. I thought this quick backstage segment they had was really good, and now Iâ€m in for the reunion and the lead up to it. Max Castor telling Tony Khan, “I have autonomy over my body†was the line of the night for both Dynamite and Collision.

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PITTSBURGH – Asked after Tuesdayâ€s morning skate here about the most difficult part of his long journey back to the Vancouver Canucks, Joe LaBate paused as he was ambushed by emotion.

“Just different setbacks,†he said. “You get momentum, and then you get a setback. Just stuff that happens. But no, man, I love this game. I love hockey. I love how hard it is. Like, never once has it crossed my mind to stop. I always had that goal to make it back to the NHL and just do whatever it takes.â€

More than 8 ½ years since LaBate, 32, played the last of his 13 games with the Canucks – and with only six National Hockey League games in between – the physical six-foot-five forward is expected in the lineup Tuesday when Vancouver plays the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Signed as a free agent by the Canucks on July 1, LaBate was recalled from the American Hockey League on Monday after Canucks Filip Chytil, Jonathan Lekkerimaki and Teddy Blueger were all injured in Sundayâ€s 4-3 win against the Washington Capitals.

Brock Boeser also left the team that day for personal reasons and was not at the morning skate here.

LaBate and Boeser are from the same hometown, Burnsville, Minn., and their older brothers are best friends.

“His older brother’s Paul, and my brother’s Peter, and they’ve been best friends since early in high school,†LaBate said. “We did a guys trip every year. I’ve known Brock probably since he was, like, 12. Being at the same camps or training facilities (in Minnesota), and then together in the summer. So Iâ€ve known Brock for a long time. Great guy, and it’s pretty awesome to be on the same team again.â€

LaBate skated Tuesday morning on the fourth line beside fellow callup Nils Aman and Drew Oâ€Connor.

His last NHL game for the Canucks was on March 28, 2017 when he logged 5:55 in a 4-1 loss to the Anaheim Ducks. Willie Desjardins was in his final weeks as Vancouverâ€s coach. LaBate had been drafted six years earlier by general manager Mike Gillis.

“It’s funny because after the game, I got an email from the (video) coach sending me highlight clips of how I played,†LaBate recalled. “And they’re saying, ‘This is exactly how you need to play, this is what we need.†And it was my last game. I just remember (Ryan) Kesler wanting to kill me and, you know, just playing a hard-nosed game. That’s the game I remember. It’s been a while.â€

LaBate required major hip surgery after that season and spent “seven or eight†months recovering.

“I had to learn basically how to skate again and all that stuff,†he said.

After three years in the Canucks†system, the University of Wisconsin graduate spent three seasons with the Ottawa Senators†farm team in Belleville, Ont., and then an AHL season in Milwaukee, and another one in Chicago.

When LaBate moved to Astana in Kazakhstan to play the 2023-24 season in the Kontinental Hockey League at age 30, it had the potential to be a one-way ticket out of North America.

“I got a ton of opportunity in a very good league,†he said. “I just grew my game a lot, I think, and it helped me a lot with adversity. The way that I went into it was, you know, kind of like a revamp, a refresh. Let’s see what I can do and go from there. Obviously, I had goals to make it back to the NHL, but I think going over there was like… let’s make a change and grow my game. See what happens.â€

It earned him a two-way, one-year contract with the Columbus Blue Jackets, for whom LaBate played six NHL games last season.

That earned LaBate interest from several teams, he said, including the Canucks. There had been a mountain of organizational turnover since he left the organization, but one trusted figure remained: Vancouver assistant general manager Ryan Johnson, who had run the Canucks farm team in Utica, N.Y., where LaBateâ€s career started.

The Canucks signed him to a two-way contract that pays $775,000 in the NHL and $350,000 in the minors.

“I saw a good opportunity here for a player like me,†LaBate explained. “And, you know, I’ve known R.J. since I got drafted. Obviously, management has changed, but R.J. has been here, and some other guys have been here that I’ve played with. So there were connections there. We just saw an opportunity for a hard-nosed player to come in and make an impact.â€

Eleven years as a pro, LaBate has played 460 games in the AHL and 19 in the NHL. Tonight, he will have a chance to score his first NHL goal in Game 20. At age 32.

“It’s incredible,†he said. “I mean, honestly, it’s hard to put into words. If I think hard about it, it’s emotional. Yeah, it’s been a journey. But I’m just so happy to be here and help this team. Iâ€ll do everything I can.â€

DeBrusk-Pettersson-Garland

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Trey Yesavage has been a Blue Jay, a Canadian, a Fisher Cat, a Bison and … back to a Blue Jay. Heâ€s pitched in Dunedin, Fla.; Vancouver, British Columbia; Manchester, N.H.; Buffalo, N.Y. and Toronto. All in the past six months.

As a novel, his 2025 season could come with a Kafka and Kerouac coauthorship — a metamorphosis on the road.

And now he has reached a new destination: Yesavage will face the Mariners as the starter for Game 2 of the American League Championship Series on Monday.

“It’s a great feeling,” Yesavage said on Sunday. “Being able to go out there and play for this team is special. The clubhouse is rallied behind me, and I have all the confidence in the world.”

Yesavageâ€s path through all four full-season levels of the Minor Leagues completed with a move to the Majors isnâ€t unprecedented; nine other players have hit Single-A, High-A, Double-A and Triple-A in the same year as their MLB debut since 2005. But it is rare, and to cap that off with a Toronto postseason-record 11 strikeouts over 5 1/3 no-hit innings against the Yankees in Game 2 of the ALDS at Rogers Centre, thatâ€s where this storybook journey feels unprecedented.

“Along the way, every pitching coach had an amazing mentality, knew how to help me where I needed help but not, like, reshape who I am as a pitcher,” Yesavage said. “All the support staff, as in strength coaches, nutritionists, trainers, across this organization, they’re all phenomenal, and I give everybody in this organization a lot of credit.”

To better understand how the 2024 20th overall pick moved across the map and up prospect rankings in his first full season, MLB Pipeline spoke to notable witnesses of his time at each Minor League level:

7 G, 7 GS, 33 1/3 IP, 2.43 ERA, 0.81 WHIP, 8 BB, 55 K, 43.3 K%, .161 AVG

In deciding where theyâ€d send their first-rounder for his first dose of the pros after college, the Blue Jays had to factor in the cold-weather environments of High-A Vancouver and Double-A New Hampshire in early April and how that could affect an arm the organization wanted to keep healthy and productive all the way through to the fall.

Yesavage stumbled out of the blocks, walking six over 3 2/3 innings in his first Florida State League start on April 8, but found his footing quickly with consecutive 10-strikeout outings on April 19 and April 25.

Entering his May 13 start against Pirates affiliate Bradenton, he ranked second in the FSL with 43 punchouts in only 28 1/3 innings. The 6-foot-4 right-handerâ€s unique nature was proving too difficult for Single-A batters to pick up with his supremely high release point, over-the-top delivery and armside-heavy arsenal consisting of a 93-96 mph fastball with lots of ride, an upper-80s slider and a 83-85 mph splitter.

“We had machines set up at a pretty, pretty good height,†Griffin said of Bradentonâ€s prep, “and then we used foam balls that came with extra spin so it was riding at the top of the zone. We tried to emulate his fastball as much as we could off that machine.â€

Griffin, who went on to play at three levels himself and earned MiLB Hitting Prospect of the Year honors after finishing with 21 homers and 65 steals, led off that Tuesday night at Dunedinâ€s TD Ballpark to give the game (attended by 494) an immediate first-round matchup. Yesavage threw him a 94.5 mph fastball at the belt, and the right-handed slugger sent it at 103.6 mph beyond the left-field bullpen.

“I was geared up to be aggressive to the heater because I figured heâ€d come out trying to blow by us,†he said.

But like any top-quality encounter, Yesavage didnâ€t wait long to get his revenge. The hurler threw three straight sliders in their next meeting to lead off the third — each one down and away from Griffin, the last two going for whiffs.

Yesavage struck out Griffin again in the fifth on five pitches — the last of which was a bounced slider after two straight 95 mph heaters.

“All his pitches look the same out of the hand,†Griffin said. “Thatâ€s what makes him so tough. The slider looks like itâ€s going to be down the middle, you go to swing and then itâ€s in the dirt. He did a great job of making me miss, and then he kept going to it until I made an adjustment. It was a fun battle.â€

Griffinâ€s second strikeout was Yesavageâ€s 12th of the night — a number that remains his career high. It was also his final batter in the FSL.

As an epilogue to that, Griffin and Yesavage almost crossed paths again at the All-Star Futures Game at Atlantaâ€s Truist Park two months later. The Jays pitcher faced only one batter in the showcase, striking out Cardinals top prospect JJ Wetherholt on the slider, before confusion from the American League side about the pitching order led him to being pulled.

Griffin was in the on-deck circle.

“Iâ€m not going to say I was too excited to get in the box, but I was ready,†he said. “When he came out of the game, it was definitely a sigh of relief.â€

4 G, 4 GS, 17 1/3 IP, 1.56 ERA, 0.92 WHIP, 11 BB, 33 K, 47.8 K%, .086 AVG
Overall: 11 G, 11 GS, 50 2/3 IP, 2.13 ERA, 0.85 WHIP, 19 BB, 88 K, 44.9 K%, .136 AVG

Through his seven starts with Dunedin, Yesavage piggybacked with fellow right-hander and 2022 19th-rounder Gage Stanifer. When Yesavage was moved to the Northwest League in mid-May, Stanifer was right there alongside, flying to Vancouver just in time to take another long bus ride to Eugene, Ore. for their respective High-A debuts on May 20.

The standout memory in Staniferâ€s mind from that time together with Vancouver came in a May 31 home game at Nat Bailey Stadium, a Saturday matinee with 4,725 in attendance. It was the pairâ€s first combined outing north of the border.

“That’s your first introduction to the culture of baseball in Canada,†Stanifer said. “You see how deep the fanbase runs, being all the way on the other coast. There is Blue Jays gear, and Blue Jays fans are showing up to sell out a crowd. It was just really special and really cool.â€

Riding that atmosphere, Yesavage tossed 4 1/3 no-hit innings against Hillsboro, and Stanifer kept the gem going with four scoreless frames of his own, fanning seven, with righty Bo Bonds getting a pair of outs between them. It was Vancouverâ€s only 1-0 win of the season.

By coming in behind Yesavage for his first 11 appearances of 2025, Stanifer got a front-row seat to the East Carolina productâ€s dominance and played off it with his own 94-96 mph fastball and 83-86 mph slider from a lower slot than Yesavageâ€s.

“It was a little different of a perspective for me at the beginning of the year, coming out of the ‘pen for the first time,†Stanifer said. “But I’d also started to develop a splitter last season, and then having him come in and just kind of give me a few pointers – whether it had been his thoughts on release point or grip pressure or whatever it might have been – helped me find a feel for my splitter and be a little more comfortable.â€

Now ranked as Torontoâ€s No. 6 prospect, Stanifer, who transitioned back to the rotation when Yesavage was promoted in mid-June, finished with a 2.86 ERA over 110 innings at three levels in a breakout campaign. His 161 strikeouts ranked sixth in all of the Minors; Yesavage finished seventh with 160.

8 G, 7 GS, 30 IP, 4.50 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, 11 BB, 46 K, 38.0 K%, .191 AVG
Overall: 19 G, 18 GS, 80 2/3 IP, 3.01 ERA, 0.93 WHIP, 30 BB, 134 K, 42.3 K%, .157 AVG

A big part of New Hampshire pitching coach Austin Bibens-Dirkx wanted Yesavage to break camp with him back in the spring, but the former Rangers reliever knew to wait his turn.

“The biggest thing is trying not to screw him up, honestly,†Bibens-Dirkx said.

Yesavage walked four in four innings in his Double-A bow on June 12 in Reading (near his Pennsylvania hometown) but only allowed one earned run and one hit. It was a humbling as the ace jumped to the upper Minors for the first time.

“I think he had kind of an awakening,†Bibens-Dirkx said. “‘OK, I was just able to throw my split down in the dirt and they were going to swing at it. I was able to throw my heater middle if I was behind because it’s funky, it has good vert, it’s pretty deceptive.†But guys were more on top of it, and he had to make some of those adjustments when execution became a more important key for him.â€

There were minor physical tweaks Bibens-Dirkx and the Fisher Cats made with Yesavage, including some involving rear-foot stability, and the pitching coach credited a 20-day gap between starts in July for the Futures Game and All-Star break with settling the prospect.

Yesavage made three appearances for New Hampshire after that pause and didnâ€t walk a single batter in any of them, while fanning 23 of his 47 batters faced.

“I think he realized that when heâ€s out of the zone, like we saw almost every first game that he had in every level, he’s not as good as he can be,†Bibens-Dirkx said. “When he is [in the zone], his stuff is electric and unique.â€

6 G, 4 GS, 17 1/3 IP, 3.63 ERA, 1.15 WHIP, 11 BB, 26 K, 36.1 K%, .148 AVG
Overall: 25 G, 22 GS, 98 IP, 3.12 ERA, 0.97 WHIP, 41 BB, 160 K, 41.1 K%, .156 AVG

Acquired from the Padres in a Trade Deadline swap for Will Wagner, Brandon Valenzuela arrived in the Blue Jays system in August with a strong reputation as a defensive catcher and little knowledge of the pitching in the Toronto system.

So when Yesavage was promoted to Buffalo officially on Aug. 12 (two days before his Triple-A debut), Valenzuela was quick to get a baptism by fire on that unique arsenal, particularly its armside nature.

“I remember in a warmup, he threw me one of the softer pitches, and I didnâ€t see it so it hit the backside behind me,†he said. “Iâ€m like, ‘The hell?’ When you have been catching a lot and you hear a slider, you expect it to click into a certain shape.â€

Yesavage once again had to grow into the level alongside Valenzuela, having walked four in 1 2/3 innings in that first Bisons outing on Aug. 14. On Aug. 27, the pair were back together for a game in Indianapolis, where Yesavageâ€s pitches may as well have been coming from atop skyscrapers beyond the batterâ€s eye.

“It was really, really bright, and I told him, ‘Bro, I donâ€t see the ball well, and Iâ€m the one catching it,â€â€ Valenzuela said. “Weâ€re just going to keep spamming and spamming splitters because they couldnâ€t see it either.â€

Sure enough, Indians batters swung at eight splitters and missed on five of them for a whiff rate of 62.5 percent. He allowed only one earned run and fanned five over 4 2/3 innings.

Yesavageâ€s next two outings came out of the bullpen as the Blue Jays flirted with using him in a relief role, but they moved him back to the rotation on Sept. 10 at Rochester; he retired all nine Red Wings he faced and struck out four.

“It was basically like we were throwing a bullpen without hitters,†Valenzuela said.

Five days later, he was a big leaguer.

“He’s one of those guys that doesnâ€t quit,†Valenzuela said. “He’s not afraid of anybody, as youâ€ve seen in the playoffs. He’s just going after the guys. No matter what happens, he’s ready to throw the next pitch.â€

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Since her illness, Kirby, who was in her early teens when she tragically lost her mother to a brain haemorrhage, has been “a lot more cautious” about her health.

She takes extra care with rest and recovery as pericarditis can occur after a viral infection, such as a cold or flu.

“I obviously had got ill and then came back too early to try and play, and then it just kind of attacked that specific part of my body,” Kirby said.

“I hadn’t been feeling well for a while, but I kind of just put it down to… I’m a footballer – I’m going to be fatigued, I train every day, I go to the gym, I’m going to be tired.”

Kirby emerged as a youngster at Reading, scoring at a rate of more than a goal a game, a supremely talented forward who earned England caps and played in a World Cup while with her hometown club, before joining Chelsea in July 2015.

Her recovery from the hallway collapse was carefully managed, and Kirby returned the following season with a vengeance – scoring 16 goals and assisting 11 more in just 18 league matches for Chelsea. Those performances earned her the PFA’s Players’ Player of the Year award.

These days, she is particularly careful if she feels her body needs a break.

“I wouldn’t say I’m scared, but aware. I don’t want to have that pain in my chest ever again. It was terrifying,” said Kirby, who is now in her second season with Brighton.

“So whenever I get ill. [When people say] ‘Fran’s not in again’, I’m like, yeah, because I’ve gone through that. I don’t want to experience that again. I need to allow my body to recover.”

But even with a more measured approach to her football, Kirby – who was nicknamed ‘Mini Messi’ by former England boss Mark Sampson – still feels the pressure.

“Everyone expects a certain level when I play,” she said. “And that comes as part and parcel of obviously playing for Chelsea, playing for England, winning all of these things.

“You know every time someone turns on the TV or they go to a game they expect Fran Kirby to be this Fran Kirby. Fran Kirby can’t have an off day.”

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For years, Asuka, Iyo Sky, and Kairi Sane have been best friends both in and out of the ring. They had a lot of shared experience wrestling in Japan, being highly scouted before coming to wrestle for WWE.

Asuka and Sane have been a tag team called The Kabuki Warriors for several years now. They joined Sky alongside Bayley and Dakota Kai when Damage CTRL was an active faction.

After Bayley got kicked out and Kai got released, they decided to stick together. However, their friendship completely imploded due to Skyâ€s association with Rhea Ripley.

A few weeks ago on Monday Night Raw, Asuka turned on Sky due to her Ripley connection with Sane stuck in the middle. To get viewers caught up on the story, the WWE YouTube channel uploaded another WWE Playlist video about how things got to where they are. This video goes into detail about how things got so bad between seemingly inseparable friends.

This video chronicles how Sky and The Kabuki Warriors went from friends to enemies. The interesting thing about this story is that Asuka is the one whoâ€s angry, Sky wants to forgive Asuka, Ripley wants Sky to walk away from both of them, and Sane is stuck in the middle. Itâ€s not as simple as just Asuka and Sky hating each other. Sane and Ripley are very important to the story as well.

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The story is woven throughout multiple matches and backstage segments. There have been consequential things happening in matches with Nikki Bella, Stephanie Vaquer, and others. Asuka and Sky havenâ€t had a one-on-one match yet or even a confrontation. The whole buildup has happened as the three have wrestled other women.

The matches are served as a way to drive the story forward, which is smart. Once they actually wrestle each other, the payoff is going to be well earned.

Overall, this was a great video showing how a great friendship crumbled in a short amount of time. In wrestling, there are always sudden turns and betrayals between friends. This type of video produced by WWE is a great way to show fans what happened in a straightforward way so they can fully understand the story.

Each week, Sky and Ripley got closer and closer with each other. That put an immense strain onto the friendship between Asuka and Sky. When Sky ran out to stop Asuka and Sane from beating down Ripley, Asuka finally snapped on her former friend. She had enough of someone she trusted for years helping someone whoâ€s been a rival.

Itâ€ll be interesting to see where Sane goes with all of this, as she is clearly stuck between obeying Asuka and helping Sky. With the go-home Raw and Crown Jewel coming up next week, the story between them and Ripley will certainly embark on its next compelling chapter.

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Shubman Gill has been named as the new ODI captain of Team India for the upcoming ODI fixtures (Images via Getty Images) As Shubman Gill takes over as Indiaâ€s ODI captain ahead of the upcoming tour of Australia, it marks the end of an era for Rohit Sharma, who led India in the 50-over format since taking charge as full-time skipper in December 2021.Rohit, who turned 38 in April, took charge as Indiaâ€s full-time ODI skipper in December 2021, replacing Virat Kohli after he stepped down from T20I leadership. The BCCI, under then-president Sourav Ganguly, wanted a single captain for both white-ball formats, and Rohit was handed the responsibility.Under his tenure, India enjoyed considerable success in the ODI format, with Rohit emerging as one of the most effective white-ball leaders in recent times for Team India.Biggest moments in Rohit Sharmaâ€s ODI captaincy

Rohit Sharma captained India to victory in the 2023 ODI Asia Cup (Photo by Surjeet Yadav/Getty Images)

• 2018: Won Asia Cup as stand-in captain.
• December 2021: Appointed Indiaâ€s full-time ODI captain.
• 2023: Won the Asia Cup in Sri Lanka.
• 2023: Reached the final of the ODI World Cup, losing to Australia at the Narendra Modi Stadium.
• 2025: Won the Champions Trophy defeating New Zealand in Dubai.

Some of his other notable achievements include the fact that he guided India to T20 World Cup in 2024 as well.

Rohit Sharma-led India fell in the final to Australia in the 2023 ODI World Cup (Photo by Gareth Copley/Getty Images)

In terms of matches captained, Rohit ranks behind the likes of MS Dhoni (200) and Virat Kohli (95), but his tenure is marked by consistency and big-match victories, solidifying his role as one of Indiaâ€s reliable white-ball skippers.

Rohit Sharma’s Team India lifted the Champions Trophy on March 9, 2025 after defeating New Zealand in the final in Dubai (Photo by Francois Nel/Getty Images)

Rohit also paved the way for Shubman Gill, who took over as Indiaâ€s Test captain following Rohitâ€s retirement from the format in May. In his first series as Test captain, Gill led India to a 2-2 draw in England while finishing as the series†highest run-scorer with 754 runs at an average of 75.40.

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How do you feel about Shubman Gill taking over as India’s ODI captain?

With Rohit and Kohli retired from Tests and T20Is, Indiaâ€s upcoming three-match ODI series in Australia, beginning October 19, will be their first international appearance in more than seven months. This will be followed by a home ODI series against South Africa and New Zealand, as well as a five-match T20I series in Australia.Rohit Sharmaâ€s journey as ODI captain may not have lasted as long as several other greats, but the records, trophies, and high winning percentage make sure that his legacy in Indian cricket will be remembered.

Rohit Sharma’s record as ODI captain

NameSpanMatchesWonLostWin %Rohit Sharma2017*–202556421275*Rohit captained Team India in 2017 vs Sri Lanka when then ODI captain Virat Kohli was rested.Indiaâ€s ODI squad: Shubman Gill (Captain), Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer (VC), Axar Patel, KL Rahul (WK), Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Harshit Rana, Mohammed Siraj, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Dhruv Jurel (WK), Yashasvi Jaiswal.

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Erica Howe paid it forward in hockey. She wants to do the same in her cancer journey.

The goaltender who has represented Canada internationally was among the foot soldiers in the movement for a viable, sustainable professional women’s hockey league.

Howe joined the Professional Women’s Hockey Players’ Association after the Canadian Women’s Hockey League folded in 2019 and took her Markham Thunder club with it.

There was a paying women’s hockey league she could have joined, the Premier Hockey League. Howe was among the players who put their faith behind the PWHPA’s vision for four years, even if a dream league arrived too late to benefit them.

“She all along was a strong foundational player in that movement and a voice that people respected a lot,” said Hockey Hall of Famer Jayna Hefford.

Howe was the backup goalie of the Toronto Sceptres in the inaugural season of the Professional Women’s Hockey League in 2023-24. She started three games for a 1-1-0 record.

Howe retired after that season to return to her job as a firefighter in Mississauga, Ont.

She was diagnosed with breast cancer later that summer. She says it was her turn to benefit from those who had come before her.

“When I was first diagnosed and I’m sitting in the office and my oncologist tells me the plan, the plan is so clear because so many people have sat before me and raised money and funds and awareness for this cause, so that when I got there, my plan was so clear and so quickly executed because they knew what the science said and how to handle it,” recalled the 33-year-old from Orleans, Ont.

Howe saw a parallel with hockey. The PWHL opens its third season this fall after expanding from six teams to eight.

“There was another league available, but we knew that if we just all jumped over there to play in that other league, we’d get same results, but if we banded together to sit out and kind of sacrifice what we did, even if some of us wouldn’t get the opportunity to play in it, like many of my friends and teammates didn’t, we knew it would be for kind of the betterment of everyone,” Howe said.

“You see the women who came before us who didn’t have sticks and skates, and they had to pay for everything, and they grinded so we could do better. It’s the least we could do to sit out and band together to make it better for the next wave of players coming through.

“Leaving it better than I found it. I’ve been saying that a lot, just the parallels between hockey and even like being a goalie and just trying to be present, and for my own journey, one step at a time, and then afterwards finding purpose and trying to pay it forward for the next person who has to go through this.”

After surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, Howe says her status is “no evidence of disease”.

The Sceptres and Montreal Victoire played a December game in her honour to raise money for cancer research. The Sceptres also provided a precious service to her during treatment.

“The mental toll of being at home and not feeling well, I knew was going to be one of my biggest barriers,” Howe said.

“I reached out to the Sceptres asking (general manager) Gina Kingsbury, ‘Do you have anything I can do because I know I’m going to need to grasp on to something normal here.’ They were like, ‘Absolutely, come into the rink. You’re part of this team.'”

Howe sharpened skates, cut sticks, handed out apparel, prepared the players’ benches for practice and helped goalie coach Brad Kirkwood with video analysis.

“My wife and I also joke about how it probably saved my life being able to go there and have tasks to do and just feel like these are my normal friends that I normally hang out with,” Howe said.

Sceptres teammate Blayre Turnbull saw Howe tackle cancer with the same strength she demonstrated as a teammate.

“She’s one of the players who had a huge role in creating this league and making sure that it was successful and that we started off on the right foot,” Turnbull said.

“She’s someone who, years from now, I hope is able to look back and think about the last five years of her hockey career and be really proud of everything she stood for and how she showed up during that time.”

Hefford, the PWHL’s executive vice-president of hockey operations, talked with Howe about how the league could help her during treatment, and offered options.

“It was important to us to have her feel the support within our community,” said Hefford. “She chose the team route, which I think was the best one for her because she had that built-in family already in that group.”

Howe, who backstopped Clarkson to an NCAA title in 2014, played for Canadian teams at the 2014 Four Nations Cup and 2016 women’s world championship.

She got the green light this month to ease back into recreational hockey. She’ll play Saturday in the Princess Margaret Road Hockey to Conquer Cancer tournament in Toronto to fundraise for cancer research.

“Princess Margaret is a leader in cancer research and I saw first-hand this year how important that is, so then just being able to kind of pay it forward, to make a better future for other cancer patients or anyone else who hears those words, ‘you have cancer,'” Howe said.

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  Mark SchlabachSep 25, 2025, 05:00 PM ET

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  • Senior college football writer
  • Author of seven books on college football
  • Graduate of the University of Georgia

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — While attending St. John’s, Keegan Bradley and his teammates had a rare privilege — playing the famous Black Course at Bethpage State Park, the site of this week’s Ryder Cup, when it was closed to the public on Mondays.

Then-St. John’s coach Frank Darby had worked out the deal with Bethpage Black superintendent Craig Currier, whom Darby befriended while helping stage the New York State Open at the course over the years.

The Johnnies didn’t have a home course, so they bounced around clubs in the New York metropolitan area. When private clubs closed for the winter, Bethpage Black stayed open for a few more weeks. The state park course known as the “People’s Country Club” soon became Bradley’s favorite.

“It was like being able to shoot basketball at Madison Square Garden with no one in the stadium, no one there,” said Mike Ballo Jr., one of Bradley’s teammates. “It’s just such a surreal experience.”

There was one rule: Bradley and his teammates could play only holes 3 through 14, what is known as the “Short Course,” and weren’t allowed to cross Round Swamp Road to play the last four, which were too close to the clubhouse and security guards.

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With those restrictions in place, Bradley and his teammates had to skip the 15th, the most difficult hole on one of the toughest courses in America. They’d never get a chance to tackle the par-3 17th and its shallow green, or walk up the 18th fairway like Tiger Woods did when he won the 2002 U.S. Open.

It was like taking your kids to Disney World and telling them they couldn’t ride the roller coasters and had to stay on the tea cups all day.

Finally, one day during the fall of Bradley’s senior season in 2007-08, he and teammate George Zolotas had had enough. They crossed Round Swamp Road and played Nos. 15-18. By the time they reached the 18th green, there was a crowd of people waiting for them.

“Everybody was just staring at us like, ‘What are you guys doing out here?'” Zolotas said. “We kind of just thought we could slip in and slip out, but it really didn’t work out like that.”

The state park police called Currier, who was able to defuse the situation.

“I don’t blame him for doing it, and I don’t think they regret it at all,” Ballo said. “And now, years later, we can laugh about it, but that was bad. It wasn’t good because for years, no one knew we were there. Then all of a sudden, everyone knew we were there.”

This weekend, Bradley, 39, has the freedom to go wherever he wants at Bethpage Black as the youngest captain of the U.S. Ryder Cup team since 34-year-old Jack Nicklaus in 1963. Win or lose against the Europeans, the experience is sure to feel like a full-circle moment for the Vermont native, who has spent much of his PGA Tour career until now feeling like an outsider.

“I came here as an 18-year-old kid going to St. John’s, played the Red Course [in] our home tournaments, and to come back as the Ryder Cup captain is something beyond my wildest dreams,” Bradley said this week.

AFTER THE EUROPEANS trounced the Americans 16½-11½ at Marco Simone Golf & Country Club on the outskirts of Rome two years ago, the U.S. team needed new leadership and fresh ideas. Even after Tiger Woods passed on the opportunity, Bradley was the most unlikely of choices — for myriad reasons.

Bradley never considered himself to be among the sport’s upper class despite capturing the 2011 PGA Championship as a rookie and amassing eight victories on tour in his career. He wasn’t invited to meetings with other top golfers when the PGA Tour restructured in the wake of the LIV Golf threat, and he was unceremoniously left off the 2023 Ryder Cup team despite finishing 11th in points.

Cameras were rolling when then-U.S. captain Zach Johnson called Bradley to break the news that he wasn’t getting one of his six captain’s picks, a moment golf fans have watched over and over again in the Netflix series, “Full Swing.”

“That moment was real,” Bradley said last year. “I was crushed. It took us a while to get over that — our whole family. We were devastated.”

For a kid who grew up going downhill on the ski slopes of Vermont, Bradley’s golf career has often felt like an uphill climb. His father, Mark Bradley, was an avid skier — Keegan’s paternal grandparents opened their first ski shop in 1958. Mark’s sister, Pat Bradley, is a World Golf Hall of Famer after winning six major championships and 31 tournaments on the LPGA Tour. She had also been an Alpine ski racer, along with their brother, John, who still runs a ski shop in Manchester, Vermont.

Mark Bradley spent one year at the University of Vermont before hitchhiking across Canada in the spring of 1973. His intended destination was Alaska, but he became sick and weak while camping during the trip. He crossed the road, stuck out his thumb and headed south to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He spent 10 years working as a fly-fishing guide there and met Keegan’s mother, Kaye.

While Kaye and Mark Bradley were driving back to Vermont, they passed a golf course on Interstate 80 in Ohio. Knowing the fishing wasn’t great in his home state, Mark Bradley decided to start playing golf again. Kaye got him a membership to Woodstock Country Club. Out of the blue, he was offered a job to become the club pro at Haystack Golf Course in Wilmington, Vermont.

From the age of 6, Keegan went to work with his father nearly every day. When Keegan failed to get up one morning, Mark went to work without him. His mother dropped him off at the club a couple of hours later, and Keegan wasn’t happy his father had left without him.

Bradley family

“Hey, Keegan, I can’t be late,” Mark told him. “Try being late to the first tee in a golf tournament and see what happens.”

Mark never had to get Keegan up again. For a few years, Mark put a pillow and blanket in his Honda Civic, and Keegan slept for a couple of hours before walking into the pro shop. He’d hit balls on the practice range and play the course for hours every day. When Keegan was old enough to go to school, the school bus dropped him at Woodstock Country Club, where his clubs were waiting for him.

“I gave him a good grip,” Mark said. “I taught him this and that, but I kept my mouth shut.”

When Keegan was in first grade, his teacher asked him to draw a picture of what he wanted to do as an adult. He drew a stick figure of a golfer and a green with a flag and wrote that he wanted to be a PGA Tour professional.

Skiing was in Keegan’s DNA too. He started racing when he was about 6, and he was among the fastest downhill skiers in his age group in the state. He spent the winters at Suicide 6, a ski resort in Vermont’s Green Mountains, and was a member of Woodstock High’s ski team.

“When you’re staring out at Vermont cold, the ice and wind and snow, and you’re standing there in the starting gate, I don’t think there’s a scarier place in sports,” Bradley told PGATour.com in 2019 . “There are no teammates. It’s all you. It’s all about your guts. You had to push yourself, almost to a dangerous line.”

Bradley family

When Keegan was 13, he told his dad he wasn’t sure he wanted to keep skiing because he didn’t want to jeopardize his future PGA Tour career. After finishing third in the giant slalom at the state championships in March 2003, Keegan told his dad he was done.

“We skied to the bottom of that hill, and he never put them on again,” Mark said.

BRADLEY’S PARENTS SPLIT up before his senior season of high school. Mark took an assistant teaching position at Hopkinton Country Club in Massachusetts, and he and Keegan lived in a 28-foot motor home during the summer of 2003. They called the RV “Tin Cup II” after the 1996 movie in which Kevin Costner played golf pro Roy “Tin Cup” McAvoy.

They used communal showers, and Keegan slept on a table that converted into a bed that wasn’t long enough for his tall frame. Keegan played golf during the day, and he and Mark shared stories around a campfire at night.

One day that summer, Keegan came back to the motor home after playing 36 holes at Hopkinton Country Club. He had befriended Jon Curran, one of the top junior golfers in the country.

“How’d you play?” Mark asked him.

“I played so great,” Keegan told his dad. “I could hit it as hard as I could.”

“Keegan, it sounds like you had a breakthrough,” Mark said.

“No, Dad, this was freakish,” Keegan said.

The next day, Mark enrolled Keegan in Hopkinton High School and found them an apartment in the school district. In October 2003, Keegan won the state Division 2 title by carding a 1-under 69. With Curran and Kimberly Donovan also playing well, the Hillers captured their first state team title with a 21-shot victory. Curran went on to play at Vanderbilt, while Donovan went to Duke.

“When Keegan first started out, all the other kids were traveling around the world,” former Hopkinton High golf coach Dick Bliss said. “He didn’t have that luxury. He had the passion, though. I mean, there was nobody that worked harder every day.”

Keegan wanted to play college golf at Florida or Florida State, but those schools didn’t think the up-and-comer from a cold-weather state could be that good. So, he chose to attend St. John’s after Darby offered him a full scholarship. With only six or seven golfers on his roster, that was one of the enticements Darby used to get golfers to come to St. John’s, which didn’t have a practice facility or a home course.

“His freshman year, he was the best player on the team with the most talent,” Darby said. “He was just a natural-born leader when he got there. We were still kind of putting that team together. When he came in, he was like a magnet. Other players followed him.”

Including Zolotas, when they crossed Round Swamp Road nearly two decades ago.

“I think the story could have been a little bit sensationalized,” Darby said. “It’s not like they were dragged off the course in handcuffs. I heard there was a police officer there. Keegan was the perfect guy to coach because I never got mad at him. I might have gotten mad at him, but it would have been five years later because I never really found out.”

Bradley saw Currier again at Bethpage Black on Monday and apologized for sharing their secret.

“I’m not on any social media, but I bet you I’ve had 100 people text me that clip when he keeps talking about how he got me in trouble,” said Currier, who is now the superintendent at Glen Oaks Club on Long Island. “I told him if the state comes after me for back lost revenue, he’s paying for it.”

Bradley and his St. John’s teammates shared a house near campus. It was more like a fraternity house, with freshmen sharing rooms. Pizza boxes and empty beer cans littered the floors, and cars were parked on the front lawn. Bradley and his teammates practiced together, played together and sometimes cut the end of their classes together to get to the course earlier.

“He leads by example,” Ballo said. “He always led by example, especially in college. He practiced the hardest. He played the most, and he was the best player. So if you wanted to get to his level, you had to do the same. The entire team rises up when Keegan’s in charge because he demands so much of himself, and he quietly makes it known that I demand this from you guys too, because I want us to be the best we can possibly be.”

Bradley wanted to play every day while in college, and he expected his teammates to be there with him.

“I think the people of New England and the Northeast have a grit mindset to them,” Bradley said. “I had such a finite time to practice golf. I grew up in Vermont, and we had really severe winters, and then Boston was actually going south. I could hit some shots later in the year. I had to capitalize on this time to hit balls, get ready to play, prepare to someday do this.

“As I got older and I was able to play year-round, I still had that mentality. I still have that mentality today [that] I can’t waste a second of this day.”

Bradley and his St. John’s teammates, along with Curran, have had a text message chain going since 2006. It’s called “Jup Life” because many of them moved to the Jupiter, Florida, area after college to try to make it to the PGA Tour.

Ballo played on the Web.com Tour during the 2013-14 season but failed to keep his card. He took a job as a valet at a golf club in southern Florida. When Bradley asked Ballo if he was playing in the PGA Tour Canada Q-school, Ballo told him he didn’t have the money to sign up.

Bradley called him back two days later.

“Listen, I’m going to sign you up,” Bradley said. “You can’t quit now, there’s no way. You have done nothing but get better every single year. You have an amazing game. I see how hard you’re working. I can’t let you stop now.”

Bradley was in his fourth season on the PGA Tour and could afford to lend his friend the money. Ballo played competitive golf for another five seasons.

“If he didn’t do that, I may not have played professional golf for six more months,” Ballo said. “He didn’t do it so he could tell people he’d helped me. He didn’t do that for any reason other than I was one of his best friends and he knew how much I wanted it and how hard I was working. He knew I deserved an opportunity to keep going. That’s the type of guy Keegan is.”

Bradley family

Bradley’s teammates from St. John’s were part of the Ryder Cup opening ceremony. Curran and Bradley were the best man in each other’s weddings, and Curran will be driving Bradley’s cart this weekend.

Bradley never forgot his roots — or those who helped him get to the PGA Tour.

“I think when you grow up in New England, whether you’re trying to be a golfer or work, you want to get your job done, you want to be the best you can at your job,” Bradley said. “I carry around the Northeast and New Englander with me everywhere I go. That’s my identity. I love that I grew up there. I love that I’m a little bit different than the guys out here, and there’s nothing I’m more proud of than representing that part of the world.”

It wasn’t as easy for Bradley to make friends on the PGA Tour, according to his father.

“Keegan’s a very private person,” Mark Bradley said. “He even says that he wasn’t making friends with anybody when he first went out on tour. It wasn’t that he was mean or he didn’t like them. It was just, back in those days, he looked at every one of them as an opponent, almost an enemy. He just wanted to beat them, and so he kind of stuck to himself.”

Not until after Bradley moved to South Florida about five or six years ago did he become close to U.S. stars such as Justin Thomas and others.

“Keegan would be the first to tell you he’s always been kind of quiet, been to himself, and I think this captaincy has been the best thing that’s happened to him,” Thomas said. “It brought out a different side of him. We keep joking you have to talk to all of us and you can’t just kind of hide from us anymore. You’ve got to hang out with us and whatnot.”

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Bradley said the past year has taught him that he can still be friends with his competitors — even if he wants to beat their brains out on the course.

“I’ve told them this: I’m older than all of them but I look up to each and every one of them,” Bradley said. “They’re all extremely good people. I’ve learned so much from this group of players. They go about their career in a much different way than I did. They want to make friendships. They want to enjoy their time. They want to celebrate their friends when they play well.

“[That’s] something that I’ve learned from each and every one of them that I’ll take with me for the rest of my life.”

THERE’S NO QUESTION Bradley’s game is as good as almost anyone’s. He won in each of the past four seasons on tour and is ranked No. 13 in the world. After Bradley finished first in the Travelers Championship on June 22, he seriously considered becoming the first playing captain in the Ryder Cup since Arnold Palmer led the Americans to a 23-9 rout at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta in 1963.

In the end, after Cameron Young, Sam Burns and Ben Griffin stepped up their games, Bradley didn’t use one of his six captain’s choices on himself.

Bradley told his father that while he was playing in the FedEx Cup playoffs, he spent too much time looking at scoreboards to see how others were playing instead of focusing on his own game.

“He was afraid that if he played, he’d be worrying and wondering what’s going on with everybody else while he was playing, and felt like he would have been a bit of a liability,” Mark Bradley said.

That doesn’t mean Keegan Bradley hasn’t thought about what he’s missing out on this week. He has caught himself looking down the Black Course’s fairways, where he played while at St. John’s, and wondered what might have been.

“I catch myself every now and then looking down the fairway, seeing the guys walk down the fairway and think how badly I’d like to do that, and how badly I’d want to be in the group with Scottie Scheffler and seeing him play and being his teammate,” Bradley said. “But I feel like I’ve been called for a bigger cause here, to help our guys get ready to play and play at the highest level.

“But in the back of my mind, I’m always thinking, ‘I could have been out there.'”

Even on the holes across Round Swamp Road.

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