The good news is, he’s ready for it — more than ready. To hear Green tell it, he’s hungry to get out there on the floor and prove that he’s capable of doing even more for the ailing Rockets franchise, maybe even bringing them back to the hallowed state of their championship glory days of the mid-1990s. While Green himself making the All Star team sooner or later feels inevitable, actually propelling the team he’s on to a winning record (let alone a chip) is going to be an uphill challenge. It’s going to take every last ounce of a winning mindset that Green’s spent years diligently cultivating.

Green spoke to SHARP about his winning mindset, his ambitions to become an NBA champion, and his successful partnership with Invictus Victory and Paco Rabanne.

What does victory feel like to you? 

Victory to me is working towards a goal and achieving it. That’s always a win in my eyes, especially if you work for something and it comes to fruition.

What was your experience like being at such an early stage of the G League Ignite? How did the experience differ from your expectations?

The G league was a pivotal stage for me. I moved out and was on my own at 18 playing to play professional basketball. During that time, I grew up very fast the experience overall helped me mature and improve my game the court. Being around vets and other pros showed me what it’s like to live and work like a pro and I am forever appreciative of the experience. 

What are your personal hopes for All Star and All NBA selections going forward? Are those expectations you have for yourself now that you are no longer a rookie?

The goal is to make the all-star team and get my team to the playoffs. My initial years have been filled with a ton of self-growth but I want to start winning more games. It would be amazing to be an All-Star, that’s definitely a goal but, getting to the playoffs is on my list as well. 

Have you always been into cologne/fragrance or is this something new that you’ve started exploring more recently?

Since a kid I’ve always liked fragrances. It’s a necessity when I step out. You feel good when you smell good, and I feel refreshed and clean when I have a cologne on.

What is it about Invictus Victory that resonates for you? Is it more about the aromas themselves, or the energy and feel of the brand/its branding/etc?

What resonates with me about Invictus Victory is definitely the energy and feel of the brand. The boldness and confidence that the brand exudes really speaks to me as an athlete. The packaging and overall aesthetic aligns with my personal style. Of course, the colognes themselves are important as well, as I want to smell good on and off the court, but it’s the overall vibe of the brand that really draws me in.

How did your relationship with Invictus Victory and Paco Rabanne get started? 

My relationship with Invictus and Paco Rabanne began when I received a partnership offer to be a part of their campaign. The international campaign was shot in Spain, and it was an experience I will never forget. The Paco Rabanne team have been great to work with. They’ve treated me like family from the beginning and welcomed me and my team during my trip to Spain a few summers ago.

The post Winning Mindset: Meet NBA Star and Invictus Ambassador Jalen Green appeared first on Sharp Magazine.

Stéfanos Tsitsipas left Melbourne ranked third in the world, and his showing at the Australian Open is just the latest step in a steady climb towards the sport’s biggest achievement: winning one of the ATP tour’s four Grand Slam tournaments. At just 24 years old, Tsitsipas has already made history, most recently becoming the highest-ranked Greek player of all time in 2019. Since then, he has been chasing victory every year at the Australian Open, making it to the semi-finals for the last three consecutive events, and making the finals for the first time in 2023.

“The Australian Open has always been special for me,” Tsitsipas says. “The French players have Roland-Garros as their home Grand Slam, the British players have Wimbledon, the American players have the US Open. Melbourne is the city with the second-largest Greek population after Athens, [so] for me, the Australian Open is always going to be my home Grand Slam. I feel very much loved there.”

Tsitsipas achieved another career milestone when he was invited to compete under the Rolex banner in 2019. Rolex has been a major presence in professional tennis since 1978, when the Swiss watchmaker became the Official Timekeeper of The Championships, Wimbledon. Since then, Rolex has taken on the role of Official Timekeeper for all four tennis Grand Slams, with its iconic green and gold clock presiding over the biggest matchups in the sport. In addition to sponsorship support, becoming a Rolex Testimonee put Tsitsipas in the company of some of most decorated players in tennis history, from Björn Borg to Roger Federer, as well as other up-and-coming stars like Taylor Fritz and Holger Rune.

It was also a long-awaited opportunity to acquire his own grail watch. “What Rolex means to me is very different to other people,” he says. “For me, I never really owned a watch until recently, and I always had the idea that if I was to get a watch, it would be one of impeccable quality. I stuck by this and years later, I was able to get my first Rolex Daytona, which is still to this day one of my favourite watches to wear.”

Despite not taking the top prize in Melbourne, Tsitsipas left the Australian Open proud of what he accomplished there. “Being able to play and compete in finals like these is what you work for as a professional athlete, and reaching the Australian Open final this year has definitely given me lots of confidence to go and win a Grand Slam final,” he says. “I’m feeling great with my tennis at the moment. I genuinely believe in what I’m able to produce.”

The next big event on the Greek star’s schedule was the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters in April. He returned to the Monte Carlo Country Club as the defending champion before a loss to Taylor Fritz just before the semifinals.

Not one to languish, Tsitsipas will move on to the French Open in May where he’ll face off against the best players in the world on the famed clay courts of Roland-Garros, including Rafael Nadal who will be gunning for his 15th win there. Taking down Nadal at the French Open would be a monumental upset, but Tsitsipas remains optimistic about his prospects for the months ahead. In a sport like tennis, where wildcard players can beat reigning champs at major events, Tsitsipas could be just a few good sets away from the number one spot in the world.

“To win a Grand Slam and be world number one is a childhood dream,” he says. “Winning titles and trophies is the reason why I wake up early in the mornings for practice and work hard in my everyday life, but I think it’s important to celebrate even the smallest victories.”

The post Watch the Throne: Stéfanos Tsitsipas Eyes the Biggest Prize in Tennis appeared first on Sharp Magazine.

The Bucks were already up six points and two possessions, rendering another basket redundant — but Antetokounmpo wasn’t trying to score. Clocking 23 points, 13 assists, and 9 rebounds in his 36 minutes on the floor, the dominant 6’11 point-forward and 2023 MVP candidate was just one board shy of nabbing his fourth triple-double of the season, and he knew it. Although the game was for all intents and purposes finished, he couldn’t resist clinching another milestone: he tossed up the rock, watched it bounce off the glass, and recovered his own miss just as the buzzer sounded. Game over. The Greek Freak nabbed the triple double.

Antetokounmpo does not exactly need to pad his stats. Since being drafted 15th by the Bucks in 2013, the Athens-born Greek-Nigerian superstar has built a career of monumental proportions, racking up one accolade after another on his way to becoming one of the preeminent figures in the league. Most Improved Player, Defensive Player of the Year, NBA MVP, All Star MVP, Finals MVP, All-NBA MVP: he’s won just about every award there is to win in the sport of basketball, including, in 2021, his first NBA Championship. “It’s gotten to the point where I don’t care as much about the individual accolades,” he explains after a win over the Toronto Raptors at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee several weeks earlier, a match he missed nursing a nagging knee injury. “I want to win another championship. I want to have that feeling again of being the last team standing.”

But working his hardest on every possession — and seizing yet another triple-double when the opportunity presents itself — is simply in his nature as an athlete. This is not a player who rests on his laurels. He’s always going to fight for that tenth rebound. “I try to maximize my life as much as I can, and live every moment to the fullest,” he admits. “That’s me. Not everybody is like that.”

It’s a few hours after the Bucks-Raptors game, and the Fiserv Forum has mostly cleared out, leaving Antetokounmpo some space to take it easy. A homegrown star who brought the Larry O’Brien trophy to Milwaukee for the first time since 1971, he’d be mobbed by throngs of fans if he dared to wander the Forum’s hallways on a given night, but on this quiet Tuesday evening nobody seems to realize that the man is still here. He stretches out in a seat in the lounge on the mezzanine level, ready to talk basketball — and another subject of primary interest to the charismatic phenomenon, luxury watches.

Antetokounmpo has been an ambassador with Breitling since early 2022, shortly after his NBA championship victory and breakout second MVP season. Heavily featured in campaigns for both the popular Navitimer and Chronomat timepieces, he’s quickly emergedshed, he couldn’t resist clinching another milestone: he tossed up the rock, watched it bounce off the as one of the premier celebrity spokesmen for a Swiss luxury watchmaker with no shortage of them, joining the ranks of Brad Pitt, Adam Driver, Charlize Theron, and more. (Speaking of his fellow ambassadors, Giannis professes that he would “love” to meet up with Pitt, should Breitling manage to swing something.) On this occasion, Antetokounmpo is joined by Breitling USA President Thierry Prissert, who, in common with most of Milwaukee, is an ardent Giannis fan.

An athlete turned fashion icon who is rarely seen these days without a striking timepiece on his wrist, Antetokounmpo was introduced to the world of watches by his older brother, Francis. As Nigerian refugees in Greece, the Antetokounmpo family had struggled to put food on the table, and even once Giannis was drafted in the NBA and started earning millions, it was difficult for him to shake that scarcity mindset. (To wit: In a league where players rarely wear a pair of shoes a second time, Giannis notoriously wore the same pair of sneakers all throughout his rookie season.) When Francis gifted Giannis his very first watch (“It was… a brand I cannot name,” he laughs), he was initially skeptical. But Francis had a way of justifying the indulgence that even Giannis could accept.

“He told me to think of it as an investment,” Giannis recalls. “You can wear it, and it’s great, but it’s also a great investment.” The result was instant addiction. “I was like, Hmmm. After that I went to go look at some more watches. Now I have probably 80 of them. I fell in love, and now I’m obsessed.”

As you might expect, Antetokounmpo has plenty of Breitling watches in his collection. Between the Navitimer and the Chronmat, however — both of which he promotes in campaigns — it’s a toss-up which he ultimately prefers. “I definitely switch between them,” he says, with a nod and a smile to Prissert. “But to be honest, I love the Navitimer a lot. It was the first watch I partnered with Breitling on, the first watch they gave me. I wore it many times. I wore it in the All Star game.” But while it has a special place in his heart, the watch itself is no longer present in his collection. “One of my teammates, Sandro Mamukelashvili, stole it from me,” he laughs. “He said he liked it, and I said it was Breitling, and he was like, ‘That means you can get another one for free!’ He never gave it back.”

The post Run With the Bucks: Giannis Antetokounmpo Talks Shop With Breitling appeared first on Sharp Magazine.

The biggest drama will undoubtedly come from the fact this is the first Masters (and major tournament in general) to feature golfers from not only the PGA and European tours but LIV Golf, the controversial Saudi-backed breakaway tour that has been accused not only of disrupting the traditional professional golf landscape, but sportswashing — using the tour to distract from the country’s egregious record of human rights violations.

Since announcing in December that LIV players would still be allowed to compete at Augusta, the Masters has caught some of that same flack, with certain critics arguing that the presence of 18 LIV golfers (including six previous Masters winners) at the tournament lends legitimacy to the new league.

Almost all the players have been asked about this elephant in the room, and their responses have ranged from diplomatic to ambivalent, depending on which tour they’re a part of. But most of the golfers have spent as little time as possible answering LIV-related questions, preferring to steer conversation toward their various methods of preparing for the Masters, which remains golf’s biggest tournament. Only one LIV golfer, Cameron Smith, sat down with the media before the tournament.

As for the favourites to take home the Green Jacket, Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy are the two players to beat this weekend. Scheffler, the defending champion (and Rolex Testimonee), will be looking to become the first player to win back-to-back Masters since Tiger Woods, who achieved the feat with wins in both 2001 and 2002. Scheffler will tee off at 1:36 p.m. Eastern on Thursday, with Max Homa and U.S. Amateur champion Sam Bennett.

McIlroy, on the other hand, has never won the Masters — and in fact hasn’t won a major tournament since 2014, during which he won both the PGA Championship and the Open Championship — but he finished second last year, three shots behind Scheffler after a stellar final round in which he shot a 64. If McIlroy manages to finally win at Augusta, he’ll complete a career Grand Slam, winning all four of golf’s modern major tournaments. In doing so, he would become just the fifth player in history to do so.

And of course, there’s still Tiger Woods. Last year, the return of Tiger after the injuries suffered from a 2021 car crash was arguably the biggest storyline. He hasn’t recorded a top-20 finish at a major since winning the Masters in 2019, which is the longest drought of his career — but as that victory proved, Woods should never be counted out. This will be the 25^th Masters in which he’s participated, and in the lead up to the tournament has expressed his gratitude for even being in the condition to play.

Others in contention include Jordan Spieth and Jason Day, who are both in fine form, as well as three-time Masters champion Phil Mickelson, who last year missed the Masters for the first time in 28 years after incendiary comments he made about the PGA Tour and the Saudi Arabian monarchy’s history of human rights abuses were published. Augusta National Golf Club chairman Fred Ridley said last year that Mickelson wasn’t uninvited to the tournament but rather chose not to play. Mickelson is currently serving a two-year suspension from the PGA for his involvement with LIV Golf, which included recruiting players to the tour. Earlier this week, Mickelson declined to speak with media at the tournament’s annual press conference.

Another player to watch out for is Justin Thomas. Appearing in his eighth Masters, the American has top-25 finishes in each of the past six years at Augusta, earning his second top-10 Masters finish last April. Last year, the 29-year-old also came back from a seven-stroke deficit in the final round at Southern Hills to defeat Will Zalatoris in a playoff to win his second PGA Championship title. This season, he has top-25 finishes in six of his seven worldwide starts in 2023, including a fourth-place finish in Phoenix in February and T-10 at the Valspar Championship in Tampa Bay just last month. Thomas will be looking to improve on his best Masters finish of fourth place in 2020.

One possible dark horse this year is Xander Schauffele. He has four top-15 finishes worldwide so far in 2023, even if he hasn’t been able to so far replicate his previous successes, which included winning the gold medal at the 2021 Olympics. The 29-year-old has a pair of top-three Masters finishes in the past four years to his credit, finishing in second place by one shot to Tiger Woods in 2019 and tied for third in 2021, although he missed the cut by three strokes at last year’s Masters after rounds of 74 and 77. Even so, Schauffele remains the seventh best player in the world according to the Official World Golf Ranking, and this could be his breakthrough at a major.

Weather wise, this past week in Augusta has been both wet and cold, and the conditions will certainly impact the quality of play this weekend. Augusta traditionally plays long, and with more rain expected in the coming days, it could feel even longer than the course’s 7,545 yards. How this precipitation will affect the par-72 course’s greens, also notorious for their speed, will be something to watch.

Delays due to the weather should also be expected, as thunderstorms have been forecast, which will add another wrinkle for the players to contend with: wind. Gusts of 30 mph have been predicted, which could increase the difficulty of some of Augusta’s trickier areas, such as Amen Corner (holes 11 through 13), considered the hardest section of the course.

With all the storylines in play, this year’s Masters will not lack for excitement. Canadians can tune in today through Sunday on both CTV and TSN to watch comprehensive coverage of the 2023 Masters Tournament.

The post The 2023 Masters Tournament Is Underway — Here’s What You Need To Know appeared first on Sharp Magazine.

Cobra Golf LTDx Fairway

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Top ranked by Golf Digest, the Cobra Golf LTDx Fairway is the brand’s second coming of the LTD drivers the brand launched back in 2015. The evolution of its PWR-COR Technology positions a substantial amount of weight low and forward, for faster ball speed and reduced spin. ($370)

Footjoy Premier Series Tarlow

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Performance and traction is key when it comes to your footwear on the green, but that doesn’t mean your golf shoes can’t look good. These blue and white beauties are a bit of a spin on the classic brogue, and they’re offered with 2-year waterproof warranty protection. ($300)

TAG Heuer Connected Calibre E4 Golf Edition

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On the list of tech gadgets to improve your golf game, the TAG Heuer Connected Golf Edition is hands-down one of the more impressive. The device logs maps to tens of thousands of golf courses around the world, and can both log scores and provide distance to pin in real time. It can track your first drive off each hole, and even has a magnetic ball marker built into the clasp. ($2,650)

Manors Golf Look

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Love it or hate it, style will always be a part of the golf scene. If you’re fishing for a new look, Manor Golf’s 2022 Classic Collection covers all of the bases, from sweaters and vests, to polos and slacks. (Polo $108, Cardigan $250, Corduroy Trousers $190)

Michael Kors Men’s Dune Sunglasses

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It’s a safe bet that it’ll be sunny out there at one point or another. A classic pair of shades with a hint of blue (to match the shoes) are an easy choice. ($216)

Flower Power Tour Glove

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It doesn’t take long to burn through a pair of gloves, and this simple option from Pins & Aces will get the job done for a relatively modest price if entry. ($15)

Sounder Driver Head Cover

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Yep, driver covers can be made fashionable as well — the same way one chooses the aftermarket wheels for their car, or the more aesthetically pleasing knife block for their kitchen counter. ($57)

Boss Water-Repellent Twill Shorts

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A good pair of athletic shorts go a long way — something that keeps you cool and dry, and something with the necessary stretch to move with you when it’s time for that big swing. Don’t worry, BOSS has you covered. ($198)

Quiet Golf Hat

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Capping things off, a comfy snapback to keep the sun out of your eyes will do the trick. Quiet Golf’s playful sportswear offers up plenty of options, with varying shades of clever irony. ($50)

The post Par For The Course: The Year’s Best New Golf Gear appeared first on Sharp Magazine.

“I was fortunate to have great influences in my life growing up,” says Cammalleri over the phone from just outside of Toronto. “I worked with some of the best trainers and nutritionists in the world at a young age, and I kept hearing the same thing — be careful about the harmful preservatives, food colourings, dyes, and sugars that are in products you consume.”

Known throughout the league as a fitness junkie, Cammalleri became frustrated with the nutrition products available at the time he was breaking into the league. There were countless options, but there was almost no transparency about what was actually in these products. This became even trickier in 2004 when the NHL implemented drug testing for its players. Cammalleri reached out to Matt Nichol, then the strength and conditioning coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs, who went to these companies and requested drug testing documentation for the products in which Cammalleri was interested; not one company could provide proof that was in their products would pass NHL regulations.  

An idea was then born. Cammalleri and Nichol, along with Cammalleri’s childhood best friend John Celenza, founded BioSteel and got to work on a hydration beverage that met a few principles important to the three of them: it was natural, 100% safe, and transparent.

Much of the research and development happened on NHL benches, says Cammalleri, who currently is the co-chief executive of BioSteel. His teammates would try different formulations of the beverage as it developed, providing feedback along the way. Earlier this month, BioSteel became the official hydration partner of the NHL, cementing a relationship that has existed since before the product officially launched over a decade ago.

“It’s a full-circle moment for the company,” says Cammalleri. “This product was born in NHL locker rooms. We’ve always been in the bottles on the bench, but to have an official partnership is a proud moment, both for me on a personal level and for our company. I get emotional thinking about all the people involved and all the work that they’ve put into the company over the last decade.”

The partnership kicked in at the 2022 NHL Draft in Montreal earlier this month, with BioSteel on board as a presenting sponsor of national coverage across Rogers Sportsnet in Canada. As part of the deal, BioSteel receive rinkside marketing and supply rights, as well as retail activation rights and community engagement platforms.

Cammalleri’s interest in business goes back to his time at the University of Michigan, where he studied sports management and communications on a hockey scholarship before being drafted 49^th overall by the Los Angeles Kings in the 2011 NHL entry draft. “My dad was an entrepreneur, and my scholarship at Michigan was endowed by the dean of entrepreneurial studies, so business is something I’ve always been interested in and wanted to explore,” he says. “I was lucky that I found an opportunity while I was still playing hockey, and it’s gone much further than I could’ve ever expected.”

The Toronto native also credits his career as a professional athlete for helping him develop skills that translate to the business world. “Professional sport is a workspace where you work with highly motivated people,” he explains. “The culture that creates enables people to really push themselves beyond their comfort zone, challenging the status quo and challenging themselves to do exceptional things.”

At the end of the day, Cammalleri believes what separates BioSteel from the rest of the hydration beverage market is authenticity. “BioSteel was literally made for athletes by athletes,” he says. “The product that we make for Connor McDavid is the same product that the everyday consumer who just wants to hydrate buys at the grocery store. And that makes such a difference.”

Learn more about BioSteel here.

The post Former NHL Star Mike Cammalleri Talks Nutrition and The Creation of BioSteel appeared first on Sharp Magazine.

Now, more than 15 years after retiring from pro hockey, Messier has penned a memoir, No One Wins Alone, which is less autobiography and more rumination on what he learned both as a member and leader of some of hockey’s greatest teams. Here, he discusses memoirs, magic mushrooms, and what makes for a good leader.

You officially retired in 2005. Why write a memoir now? What was your motivation?

It’s a great question. As a player, I was always struck reading Sacred Hoops by Phil Jackson and The Winner Within by Pat Riley. Those are two books that I really enjoyed because they delved into the team aspect of [sport]: the spirituality around a team, the galvanizing of a team, and creating a safe place for players. So I didn’t want to write something just about myself, but instead I wanted to write a book about the experiences that I had, about how beautiful the game — and team sports — can be when you play in a culture that’s conducive to inclusiveness, camaraderie, and winning. And I was lucky enough to have that throughout my [professional hockey career]. Hockey, when you boil it down, is about people; it’s about galvanizing people and maximizing their potential, of course, all through the game of hockey. But in the end, it’s about people. And I think everyone can learn [something] from those lessons.

While hockey was obviously a huge part of your life from an early age, with your dad having a career himself, it never seemed like the game was forced upon you. Is that accurate?

I loved the game because my dad played — and he introduced me to it — but then I fell in love with the game itself. I think, as a parent, it’s always important to understand your child, and my dad had a unique ability to understand when I was being lazy or when I just didn’t want to really go play. There’s a big difference. At times, I was just overwhelmed, and I didn’t really want to go play. And I was never forced to. I mean, that didn’t happen very often, but there were times.

That reminds me of me and my dad. As a little kid, sometimes I’d insist that I wasn’t going to the rink on a Saturday morning for whatever reason. And we’d get into these battles where he didn’t totally understand why I didn’t want to go — I usually had fun — and he’d tell me it was important to follow through on your commitment to a team, which was hard for me to understand at a young age.

Sport can be a great teacher, if you let it. Playing on a team is challenging for a pro, let alone an eight-year-old, because there is accountability. Once you sign up at the start of the year to play on that team, there’s a big responsibility. And if you can force yourself to be accountable, that, to me, is [one of] the most important things we can really do to help our kids through challenging years. And those are the life lessons that stay with kids for the rest of their lives.

“There are so many great young athletes who have never been given the opportunity to play any kind of ice sport. So we’ve got to do more to create access and opportunity, and to diversify the game. We can do better.”

Before the Oilers finally broke through with a Stanley Cup win in 1984, you came up short in the playoffs a handful of times. What did you learn about responding to failure during your career?

If you just look at my own career, having been a part of six Stanley Cup teams, [that means] there are 20 years that I lost. [But] I don’t consider those lost seasons. I consider them steps in the growth of any one player or organization, as long as you’re learning from them and you’re asking yourself questions about, “What did we do right? What did we do wrong? What can we do to be better? How can we evolve as a team? How can we evolve as players, and as people?” Those are the important lessons when things don’t go right.

Is self-reflection an overlooked aspect of being a pro athlete?

Well, I think you have to be interested in growing and becoming a better player, obviously, and you have to be interested in becoming a better teammate and a better, more evolved person. All of these things are important for a championship team because, in the end, you have to surrender yourself for the benefit of the team. And it’s not easy. Most of the time when you get 20 or 22 players on a team, they’re all at different stages of their careers. Some have signed long-term contracts. Others are working towards a contract and might not be happy with the position that they’re in because they’re not going to get the production to get the bigger contract. So working through all of these challenges is part of the process.

In the book, you recount missing a team flight as a young player, which ultimately led to a stint in the minors. You also mention that you liked to enjoy yourself away from the rink and sometimes you took flack for it from the media. One of the challenging things about being a pro athlete, especially a young one, is that there’s an industry built around evaluating you very publicly, and that often goes beyond your on-ice performance to assessing your character. How did you deal with that?

The fact is that, when you become a professional athlete on a professional stage, you do open yourself up to being analyzed, for better or for worse. That’s just part of the game. Of course, there is a certain amount of experience that’s [required] to not get bogged down by what’s being said, negatively or positively, because both can affect you in the wrong way. For me, there were trying times learning the responsibilities of being a pro and understanding that livelihoods were at stake. It’s different being an 18-year-old kid making some money, but families have moved homes and to new cities and new schools. There’s a lot at stake when you play on a professional team, and the decisions that you make directly impact [others]. When you’re hit between the eyes with a sledgehammer that your decisions impact a lot of people, that’s a real “aha moment” for most athletes. And it was for me. It forces you to square up and be accountable and be a good teammate.

You’re a pretty legendary leader, having captained the Oilers and Rangers to Stanley Cups. What are the keys to being a good on-ice leader?

I think, first of all, you have to establish relationships with everybody — interpersonal relationships that go far beyond the game itself. That’s harder and harder now with the amount of [personnel] changes on each team, but it’s critical. You have to establish yourself as someone that’s trustworthy. You have to be consistent in your approach to the game, on and off the ice. You have to be honest; you have to be willing to be honest. You have to be able to give constructive criticism without resentment. And then, of course, you’ve got to lead by example. There’s just so much to that question; it’s so rich with content, becoming and evolving as a leader.

From your vantage point, are those leadership traits as applicable off the ice as they are on?

If you’re dealing with people, it’s all the same. There’s no difference. How do you inspire people? And how do you inspire people to motivate themselves? A leader should never hold themselves responsible for motivating people. That’s a short shelf-life for any leader. A leader’s greatest responsibility is to inspire people. And when you inspire people and you create an amazing workplace and a vision that people believe in, they’ll motivate themselves. And that has longevity. That has legs. That’s how people can coach and mentor and lead people year after year after year. It doesn’t matter if you’re a schoolteacher or a Fortune 500 CEO or factory manager, when you’re dealing with people, the same principles apply.

In the early ’80s, during one off-season, you took a trip to Barbados, where you ended up taking psilocybin, a.k.a. magic mushrooms. And despite thinking that the lizards in your hotel room were dragons, it was a positive experience for you. How so?

I was amazed that something like that could alter and have that big of an effect on my mind. At that point, I was becoming a pro and I was a decent player. I was training and working on my body, and I realized that if the mind is that powerful, how could I train it to do special things at special times under pressure? How can I train my mind as hard as I train my body to be a professional player? And that was an awakening for me. We’d done some power of positive thinking seminars early on, about good self-talk and how important that was, but that particular moment became much more for me than that. It made me more curious about how I could, through the practice of meditation and awareness, become a better player.

Hockey is a difficult sport to access. Equipment is expensive. So is ice time. And that’s true in Canada, let alone a place like Manhattan, where rinks are few and far between. Tell me about your efforts to improve accessibility to the game, as I know that’s something that’s important to you.

We had a feasibility study done not along ago, and to stay up with the national average, we’d have to build 350 rinks in and around the New York Metropolitan Area, and [then we’d] still just be around the national average in terms of access. There are so many great young athletes who have never been given the opportunity to play any kind of ice sport. So we’ve got to do more to create access and opportunity, and to diversify the game. We can do better. And a good start is the Kingsbridge National Ice Center, which we’re trying to create. [It’s] nine sheets of ice, which will have a massive impact on the economy in the area for job creation and for access and opportunity for kids that live in the metropolitan area, especially in the Bronx. It’s been a struggle for all the obvious reasons, but it’s too great a project to give up on.

In retracing your career for this book, is there a singular moment or achievement that stood above the rest?

There are so many great moments — in victory and in loss. So many great moments from a people perspective. So many stories that didn’t make it into the book that were instrumental in my development and evolution as a person and a player. I just look at it as one great big source of gratitude, to be honest with you. And wow, how lucky I have been.

The post Mark Messier on What Makes a Good Leader and His New Memoir ‘No One Wins Alone’ appeared first on Sharp Magazine.

Enhanced Maps

The latest update to the Connected Golf Edition features accurate, up-to-date maps of more than 40,000 courses around the world. Updated 2D maps now have even more detail and the TAG Heuer Golf app uses Apple’s new SceneKit 3D graphics framework to significantly advance its 3D maps on iOS devices. IOS users will also find simulated shot trajectories and a fresh overall feel similar to the visuals seen on pro golf telecasts.

Smart Shot Tracking

Knowing the distance to the green is key for selecting the right club and making the shot. The TAG Heuer Connected Golf Edition’s 2D maps give you the information you need to make the right choice and end up on the green.

Data Analysis for Every Shot

When paired with the TAG Heuer Connected Golf app, TAG Heuer’s Connected Golf Edition makes for the ultimate performance tracker. Unique to TAG Heuer, the Driving Zone feature shows you the landing zone of your previous tee shots, helping you get closer to the hole with every round.

Club Recommendations

Can’t decide between your 3-iron and your hybrid? Just ask your watch. Simply move the target on the course map, and the Connected will recommend the right club based on distance. Set up distances for each of your clubs, and the watch will then take this data into account for even more precise recommendations.

Enhanced Scoring

On-the-go scorekeeping is one of the most popular features on the Connected smartwatch and the TAG Heuer Golf app adds even more functionality by visualizing the score in stroke play, stableford, or match play. If you’re using your phone as well as your watch, a new built-in Bluetooth connection allows for faster synchronization for an even more seamless experience.

Weather at a Glance

It can’t make June arrive any faster, but it can help you navigate the unpredictable weather of fall in Canada with the Connected’s up-to-the-minute weather display. An informed golfer is a dry golfer.

A Style Upgrade

With an ultralight titanium case, green-stitched golf strap, and a ceramic bezel, the Connected Golf Edition is built with the same attention to precision and finishing as TAG Heuer’s mechanical sports watches. Because being the most stylish guy in the clubhouse is its own kind of win.

$3,200

All images courtesy of TAG Heuer.

The post 7 Ways The TAG Heuer Connected Can Transform Your Golf Game appeared first on Sharp Magazine.

The 5K run saw nearly 1000 runners and more than 20 elite athletes participated in the event including Alex Bono of Toronto FC and Kwame Awuah of Forge FC.

“Organizing a road race during a pandemic definitely has its challenges, but I’ve approached these obstacles as opportunities to problem solve and grow,” says Kelly Foss, the race director and a runner herself. “I am especially thankful for the fact that, in spite of the pandemic, our runners and local businesses continue to step up in support of our small, local causes.”

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The post Yorkville Run appeared first on Sharp Magazine.

]]> https://sharpmagazine.com/2021/10/06/all-or-nothing-toronto-maple-leafs-docuseries/ Wed, 06 Oct 2021 17:40:57 +0000 https://sharpmagazine.com/?p=108627 The Leafs’ starting goalie and NHL’s Chief Content Officer on the intimate docuseries and their hopes for the upcoming regular season.

The post Jack Campbell and Steve Mayer on Giving ‘All or Nothing’ Unprecedented Access to the Leafs appeared first on Sharp Magazine.

]]> As the Toronto Maple Leafs prepare to kick off their 2021-22 regular season, the story of their last campaign for the Stanley Cup title — which was played under the shadow of the Covid-19 pandemic and ended at the hands of the Montreal Canadiens in yet another first-round playoff loss — is finally here with Prime Video’s docuseries All or Nothing: Toronto Maple Leafs.

The series is narrated by Canadian actor (and lifelong Leafs fan) Will Arnett and is the the first to center on an NHL team. The five-part docuseries offers an intimate and behind-the-scenes look at the entire Leafs organization in a year where they became the first all-Canadian North Division Champions, with cameras capturing every moment from their spirited preseason to their heavily scrutinized postseason defeat to Montreal.

Via Zoom, Jack Campbell, the Leafs’ starting goalie, and Steve Mayer, the NHL’s Chief Content Officer, speak with Sharp about the international appeal of bringing the acclaimed sports series to professional hockey, the camera crew’s unprecedented access to the inner workings of a top NHL team, and their hopes for the upcoming regular season.

Steve, there have been many successful installments of the All or Nothing sports docuseries for other sports, so when did you start discussing the possibility of featuring an NHL team with the Prime Video team? Why did you decide on the Toronto Maple Leafs?

Steve Mayer: Years ago, we reached out to say, “Hey, we would be interested.” And it was Amazon that came back and said, “Hey, we would be interested if we could get the Toronto Maple Leafs.” And we started conversations. It took a lot of time — it was years before we finally agreed, the Leafs agreed, the players agreed.

We trusted the crew that would come into their lives. [But] not only for a few weeks — this was for an entire season, and it worked out amazingly well. We, at the NHL, are thrilled that we’re in partnership with Amazon. We think this is a great launch for Amazon Prime Video in Canada, and to be able to give the Leafs nation a glimpse to a full season and get to meet the players and meet the front office and see what happens during this entire season behind the scenes — when I say behind the scenes, we’re behind the scenes — was really cool. We’re thrilled with the way it’s turned out — not thrilled with the result at all. (Smiles.) But we couldn’t help the result. The show is really compelling for any sports fan — forget a hockey fan. For any sports fan, this is good stuff.

Jack, there’s a lot of talk in the first episode about all of the new additions to the team, and you were certainly one of them before the pandemic. How did you deal with the transition to Toronto and the pressure of playing for such a vocal and passionate fan base?

Jack Campbell: I think the biggest focus I have is just the confidence I have in my teammates. I know, really, on a small scale without overthinking anything, if I just go out and do my job, I know everybody else is gonna go out and do theirs, and that brings a lot of comfort. It just brings so much confidence knowing that I play on this team, with these guys, and how much they care and how much they care about each other. Then, ultimately, too, playing in Toronto is such a great hockey market, and our fans are amazing. I just think it’s exciting playing well here, and it just drives me every day to be a better goalie and person for them.

Steve, I was struck by the direction and storytelling style of this show, because it definitely is unprecedented in the sense that you really get to hear the players on the ice — you really get to see all of the action. So what do you think it is about this series that will really appeal to hockey fans, who think they’ve really seen it all when it comes to docuseries or just series about hockey in general?

Mayer: Well, first, I can speak to hockey fans: You haven’t seen it all until you’ve seen this. We’ve never shown how an actual trade happens, [or] waivers. There are things that are in this particular episode — the dynamic between player and coach and how unique situations are handled. I love this one scene in the first episode between Auston Matthews and Sheldon Keefe that shows the dynamic between player and coach and how things are handled in an organization, and that was very telling of what the Leafs are all about. Those are things that I think, again, become super unique.

And you mention audio, we mic all the players, [so] you hear stuff. Some of the language is probably not appropriate for children younger than whatever age, but yet, you hear things that you would never be able to hear. Everybody can tune in and watch a game. This series is [meant] to take you to the next level, to take you places as a fan that you would never go, and to give you a glimpse into an organization that you would never get. That’s what we set out to do with every one of these productions, and I truly think we accomplished it with this series.

Jack, you’ve played in the professional leagues for close to a decade now, so you have learned to deal with the obvious disappointment that came with last season’s finish. What do you think fans will be most surprised to learn about the team through this series?

Campbell: I think the biggest thing is just our true passion for winning and accomplishing our goal. It’s incredibly devastating to fall short of a goal and how much we truly care about winning and about one another. It comes out right away in the show and how badly we just want to bring a Stanley Cup to Toronto for the fans, for our teammates, for the coaches, for the management, everybody. So it really shines through on how much we truly care.

As a player, was it at all disarming to have a film crew around you for such a long time, especially during that tough finish in the playoffs? Did it create an extra sense of pressure or make it harder to stay focused?

Campbell: Honestly, I don’t think it was a distraction at all. You kind of get to know the crew and [they] kind of just fit in. They get to know our routine and stuff like that, and [there was] absolutely no distraction. If anything, it was just really nice to have them around.

Steve, what do you hope this docuseries will do in terms of not only growing interest in hockey but also growing business in Canada with more original programming?

Mayer: For us, at the NHL, we just want as many people to experience the NHL as possible, to experience the Maple Leafs, to experience our players, our personalities. We truly believe that if you’re a sports fan — but even if you’re not even a sports fan and you get sucked in — you like Jack Campbell because he’s cool, he’s the guy that’s in the series, and he’s the big star. You may watch a Toronto Maple Leaf game and if you watch a Toronto Maple Leaf game, you might really like the NHL. And you’re gonna come back for more and more.

We think we have incredible personalities. We have a great game, an amazing game. There’s gonna be ups and downs like any movie, like any book you read, like any TV show, but isn’t that what it’s all about? It might not have ended perfectly, but it’s the start of a foundation that we think could lead to success. And if it does lead to success, we’ll say that, “Hey, we documented that road to a potential Stanley Cup down the line.”

Jack, from a playing perspective, and Steve, from a content perspective, how are you both feeling going into the upcoming season? How are you hoping to rebound as we slowly move out of this pandemic and begin another exciting chapter of professional hockey?

Campbell: I think we’re still super cautious with Covid, and we still gotta do our part. But hearing that fans might be back in the building is incredibly exciting for everybody. We definitely missed them last season.

Mayer: Yeah, we’re really hopeful at the league that things will be back to normal in the North division, a full season, back to the schedule that everybody’s used to. We’re all cautious, we’re all hoping for the best, but to have fans back in the building — we missed them so much. And as the playoffs went on last year and fans started to return, you realized, Wow, that was a very missing piece. And to have them back, that’ll be awesome.

And fans love content! You can’t give them enough; they can’t get enough. Jack’s really a star!

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

All or Nothing: Toronto Maple Leafs is now available on Prime Video.

The post Jack Campbell and Steve Mayer on Giving ‘All or Nothing’ Unprecedented Access to the Leafs appeared first on Sharp Magazine.

]]> https://sharpmagazine.com/2021/09/22/the-voak-sportswear-classic-tees-off-for-a-good-cause/ Wed, 22 Sep 2021 13:30:00 +0000 https://sharpmagazine.com/?p=108196 Voak Sportswear and Winnipeg Jets captain Blake Wheeler know how to put on a charity golf tourney.

The post The Voak Sportswear Classic Tees Off for a Good Cause appeared first on Sharp Magazine.

]]> Voak Sportswear and Winnipeg Jets captain Blake Wheeler hit a (ahem) hole-in-one with the first annual Voak Sportswear Classic charity golf tournament. Teeing off in late August at the Bridges Golf Course in Starbuck, Manitoba, the tournament raised money for six charities with a range of on-course battles, from putting challenges to long-drive competitions and everything in between.

All golfers received a Sharp welcome package — along with copies of Sharp and S/‘s Summer issues, and the Sharp: Book for Men (Spring/Summer) — while plenty of other prizes were up for grabs, including custom blazers, much like The Master’s legendary green jackets, that went to five golfers (including Philadelphia Flyers’ defenseman Travis Sanheim) who hit an impressive 14 below par.

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