Team NT prepares to compete in Canada Summer Games

6 days ago

Youth athletes from the Northwest Territories will be flying out to St. John's, NL, to prove themselves at the national level. CBC checked in with one team ahead of their big departure.

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Blue Jays and Cubs play to determine series winner

Chicago Cubs (68-51, second in the NL Central) vs. Toronto Blue Jays (70-51, first in the AL East) Toronto; Thursday, 3:07 p.m. EDT PITCHING PROBABLES: Cubs: Matthew Boyd (11-5, 2.45 ERA, 1.05 WHIP, 121 strikeouts); Blue Jays: Max Scherzer (2-2, 4.21 ERA, 1.11 WHIP, 49 strikeouts) BETMGM SPORTSBOOK LINE: Cubs -113, Blue Jays -106; over/under is 8 1/2 runs BOTTOM LINE: Both the Toronto Blue Jays and the Chicago Cubs are looking for a series win with a victory on Thursday. Toronto is 70-51 overall and 39-20 in home games. The Blue Jays have a 51-3 record in games when they scored five or more runs. Chicago is 68-51 overall and 32-29 in road games. The Cubs are 53-10 in games when they out-hit their opponents. Thursday's game is the third time these teams match up this season. TOP PERFORMERS: Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is second on the Blue Jays with 48 extra base hits (29 doubles and 19 home runs). Ernie Clement is 16 for 44 with two doubles, a triple, four home runs and eight RBIs over the past 10 games. Pete Crow-Armstrong has 31 doubles, four triples, 27 home runs and 78 RBIs while hitting .254 for the Cubs. Nico Hoerner is 12 for 38 with a double over the last 10 games. LAST 10 GAMES: Blue Jays: 6-4, .319 batting average, 3.54 ERA, outscored opponents by 28 runs Cubs: 4-6, .225 batting average, 3.21 ERA, outscored opponents by two runs INJURIES: Blue Jays: George Springer: 7-Day IL (head), Shane Bieber: 60-Day IL (elbow), Bowden Francis: 60-Day IL (shoulder), Ryan Burr: 60-Day IL (shoulder), Nick Sandlin: 15-Day IL (elbow), Yimi Garcia: 15-Day IL (ankle), Anthony Santander: 60-Day IL (shoulder), Alek Manoah: 60-Day IL (elbow), Angel Bastardo: 60-Day IL (elbow) Cubs: Miguel Amaya: day-to-day (leg), Mike Soroka: 15-Day IL (shoulder), Jameson Taillon: 15-Day IL (calf), Eli Morgan: 60-Day IL (elbow), Justin Steele: 60-Day IL (elbow) ___ The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.

Associated Press

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Associated Press

Blue Jays and Cubs play to determine series winner

Mikel Arteta exclusive: His ‘evolution' as a manager and the ‘gift' of young talent

New York Times

3 hours ago

New York Times

Mikel Arteta exclusive: His ‘evolution' as a manager and the ‘gift' of young talent

'Every artist has their critics.' That is the title of a striking piece of artwork hung high above the London skyline, depicting a brooding photograph of Mikel Arteta marking out something that looked like stream-of-consciousness ideas in black paint. The notion of Arteta the artist is an interesting one for a manager whose team is built on core values of control, work ethic, unity and a specialism in set pieces. Advertisement As for the other part, Arteta is very accustomed to living with critics, so that part feels less open to interpretation. He is also a strong self-critic. For any manager, there is a fascinating contradiction in that they have to be unbendingly sure of themselves in order to lead a group of highly-tuned performers in the face of heavy public pressure, but also be open-minded enough to question themselves, adjust their own principles and absorb new ones. The game moves. So must they. Which is exactly where we find Arteta in the summer of 2025. He is about to begin his seventh season in charge of Arsenal and is speaking to The Athletic after being announced as sportswear company Under Armour's new global ambassador and director of sporting performance. Just like Arteta's football philosophy, the culture he wants to cultivate and his methods for pushing the boundaries are not fixed. They remain in development — and the way his mind works, it will stay that way until his last day in management. 'There is much more to come,' he says. 'Because the manager that the boys needed three years ago is a different manager than they need today. The team has grown so much in every sense of that word that they need somebody else — and that somebody else has to adapt and identify what is really important, what is really going to get that fire in the belly to get the best out of them. That's the evolution of the manager. 'It's not just the idea of changing. If we go to YouTube and the next evolution is, 'Oh look, he has put this player in this space!' that's not evolution of the manager.' So what does he want to be for his players now that he wasn't before? 'Exactly what they need, and each of them are going to require a different manager,' he explains. 'Each of them are going to require at some point a certain something that they don't expect from the manager. And that's the beauty of it. When it's something new — 'Oof, that is going to make me better and I didn't see that coming'.' Arteta's mind is constantly whirring to come up with an idea that might bring a spark, new motivation, a tiny detail that can make a difference. It might be a team challenge or a private talk, an unexpected metaphor or a trick. Where do all these things come from? 'Put in the hours,' he says. 'When you are working on something, that triggers something else. Having a conversation with somebody about one topic creates so many other things, and that stays in your brain and sometimes at night, sometimes in the shower, sometimes when I'm on the pitch looking at something, I say: 'I'll have this.'' Advertisement It all stems from what he calls 'the power of the conversation'. Ideas are everywhere if you just care to listen out for the flicker. Arteta has more one-to-one chats with his players these days. 'It's not always easy, though,' he counters. 'Because the player always wants something from the manager and that is more game time. But the player needs to understand: the more competitive it gets, the squad gets bigger and you're going to have to share. You will be extremely important whether you play 60 minutes or the last 30 and that's something to learn.' Surely that will be one of the most sensitive challenges, to get, say, Viktor Gyokeres and Kai Havertz to collaborate to share game time. Or Myles Lewis-Skelly and Riccardo Califiori. Or Noni Madueke and Gabriel Martinelli. And so on. It is a modern football requirement. 'We cannot take away the fact that the desire to play every game is something super positive,' Arteta says. 'What we need to understand is that I have to make a decision to play a player for a certain reason, and maybe I pick the player next to you, and that's not easy.' So much so, occasionally Arteta goes home and feels sad. Because if, on the one hand, giving someone an opportunity can 'transform his life', on the other hand, a player on the downward curve senses his raison d'être diminishing. These are big feelings to manage. 'That person is probably in this country alone without his family and the only reason why he's in this country is to play football, to play minutes, and you're taking that away from them. That's tough.' It weighs heavily sometimes. The life of a football manager is pretty unusual. But it demands the ability to keep moving, keep demanding, keep inspiring, and keep taking the big decisions. Day one of pre-season is always a big one. It's the time for a manager to look directly at his players and see how much desire he can detect. This time, Arteta was very pleased with what he saw. 'I look at their eyes and their bodies, and they tell you straight away how much they want it. They looked in great shape. You can talk. 'Yeah, yeah, boss, it's gonna be a great season. I'm gonna do this…' They come on day one and they have three or four kilograms. Big problem. Our players came in and they were looking incredibly fit.' They are ready. He is ready. Vamos. Arteta is talking ambition, vision and values — the aspects he picked out about Under Armour which persuaded him to work with the sportswear company. At the launch event, there is some discussion about how Under Armour has a reputation for scrapping it out, but how they want to take big, audacious steps to be a serious player in the football market. Advertisement They saw in Arteta someone they identified with, as founder and CEO Kevin Plank explains: 'We brag about being underdogs — being for all those not born big enough, tall enough, fast enough, strong enough, smart enough, pretty or handsome enough, for all those that didn't feel like they were born in the pole position but had to work for it, to struggle to fight through something, of striving to be more, striving to be better. 'And Mikel has led a very similar story as a player: he played in the biggest clubs but there were always others he had to compete against, so you watched him work with the hand that he was dealt and having the ability to rise to the highest level.' Plank is a highly successful businessman. He saw something compelling in Arteta straight away. He tells the story of their first meeting. It was scheduled for breakfast at the manager's north London home, the morning after the final day of the 2023-24 season. Plank went to the game. Arsenal beat Everton 2-1 but the mood was loaded with what might have been as they finished up second in the league after Manchester City bulldozed past them. Plank figured the meeting would be cancelled. It wasn't. Arteta showed up, ready to have a conversation. As a manager, there is a steeliness mixed in with all those creative ideas he loves. 'Every artist has their critics.' It is beginning to make a lot more sense. And here's another apparent contradiction about Arteta. Not so long ago, detractors created a narrative that he was not a believer in young talent. Evidence in recent times obliterates that, with the emergence of Lewis-Skelly and Ethan Nwaneri last season and the extraordinary elevation of 15-year-old Max Dowman to the first team being carefully managed by Arteta, his coaching staff, the club's safeguarding team and the teenager's family. Two other youngsters, Marli Salmon and Andre Harriman-Annous, featured in Arsenal's first team for the first time in pre-season. The truth is, overseeing the transition of a youthful talent into the first team is one of the most rewarding and stimulating aspects of Arteta's job. It is, he says, 'a massive gift and a big responsibility' that requires the greatest consideration. 'There's nothing guaranteed in sports. It's not about giving the opportunity for the sake of it. When someone is really knocking on your door and giving you every reason, every single day, to earn that opportunity, you have to give it to them. If there is a passion that I have and something that I love, it's that. But at Arsenal, especially at this level, you really have to earn it and be so good.' Advertisement Arteta is a father to three sons. He likes to take them to Hale End, Arsenal's academy, when he drops in several times a season to see how things are going. That paternal instinct impacts how he assesses the balance between looking after a prodigy from a human perspective versus recognising the platform to allow brilliance to flourish at their best level. As a father and a manager, he feels the nuances deeply. 'With Max, for example, my eldest is 16,' he says. 'When I look at Max, he is one year younger than my son, you know?' He smiles at the madness of it all. 'I know the conversations I have with my son and the things that we have to be on top of, so I can imagine exactly how Max lives at home and the conversations that his parents are having with him and the things that they need to be constantly teaching and educating him with. So it's something fascinating. But he's showing great maturity, and it's a credit to his family as well, the way they are raising that kid.' Arteta has observed a transformation in youth development since his own days as a kid at La Masia, Barcelona's fabled academy. 'It's the evolution of the game. I think if you asked me at 15 if I could play with the first team? Impossible. It was honestly impossible. I could not do it, not mentally, not physically. 'All the tools, all the training, all the education and all the development that they are now having at a very young age are paying off. A lot of work has been done in this country and that's why those players at 15, 16 years old look ready to play men's football, and that's very, very strange.' Even for him, it is taking some getting used to. The environment is another key, and Arteta credits the senior players at Arsenal for being thoughtful and welcoming role models. 'We are lucky because the players that we have,' he adds. 'They are really caring. They are really supportive and they are genuinely happy to see somebody do that. Sometimes that is not always the case, but I think they have the right environment at Arsenal to grow and fulfil their potential.' Arsene Wenger — another keen promoter of youth — always tempered his enthusiasm with realism. One of his sayings was, 'You pay with points'. But when he considered burgeoning ability unstoppable, he would do it, no question. Advertisement 'Arsene used to say that a lot and I understand why,' Arteta says. 'The temptation will always be to give the opportunity to the players who have experience, and if they make mistakes, it will be less and they have probably made mistakes already. But if you have the choice between a young player that you are so convinced about the qualities, and another player, and take a little risk? I think it's worth it. 'In football, nothing guarantees winning games. It doesn't matter what age you have in your passport, what experience you have. You have to have the sense that the player is prepared to handle a certain situation and has the personality to overcome exposure at this level.' Interestingly, he also uses the safe space of London Colney to get a few bumps out of the system away from the mega-scrutiny of competition. Kids need a few hard knocks on the way. 'Let kids make mistakes and then support them. Sometimes we have to make them fail in training so they can learn to overcome these situations when they come up in a game.' When Arteta and Andrea Berta, Arsenal's sporting director, spend time planning the squad, Hale End is central to the conversations. 'The first thing that we do is look in the academy and see if there is any potential there that can really help in the first team, and if the answer is yes, you have the solution. If the answer is no, then you have to go to the recruitment policy. 'Ideally, you know what you want to recruit: very young, very talented and cheap. That's easy on paper! Then you have to go to the markets.' Across football, younger teenagers are making such remarkable strides that Arteta believes the governing bodies need to address the regulations about game time and freedom of movement. There are restrictions at Premier League level which are not necessarily the case worldwide. Provided someone is advanced enough and every aspect of their wellbeing is looked after, holding players back here while they can be progressing elsewhere is not something he agrees with. 'As the game has evolved, the law has to evolve,' he says. 'It is also in relation to the talent that we can recruit all over the world, because if there is great talent here, great, but we have to open our doors again. It's going to make the league, country, grassroots football, much better because the more capacity we have, the standard is going to be raised. It might take two or three, four years, but everybody afterwards will be better because the standards are higher.' The countdown to the new season is getting louder. Arteta hopes he has made the right tweaks to push his squad that little bit further this time. They have been bolstered by new signings in all departments of the team, each of whom has the capability to be challenging for playing time more or less straight away. Advertisement Arteta outlines the three pillars that he leans into often when dealing with players in general. 'I always ask three questions. Can he do it? Does he know how to do it? And does he want to do it? Maybe he can do it, but he doesn't know how to and I can teach him. If a player doesn't want to do it, it's better to leave him alone. If a player is willing to do it but doesn't know how to do it, let's work on him because we can still overcome that barrier. When the guy is not willing to do something, I think, long-term, it won't work.' The newcomers are welcomed into a group who demand of themselves and each other. They will have to lock into that, too. Arteta wouldn't have it any other way. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle

Team NT prepares to compete in Canada Summer Games

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Blue Jays and Cubs play to determine series winner

Blue Jays and Cubs play to determine series winner

Mikel Arteta exclusive: His ‘evolution' as a manager and the ‘gift' of young talent

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