Seattle Storm center Ezi Magbegor tore her ACL during Australia’s quarterfinal qualifying game against Italy in the 2026 FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup on Wednesday, the Storm announced. She will miss the rest of the WNBA season.

Magbegor played just four minutes in Australia’s 82-80 victory before suffering the injury. It’s the third time this calendar year that Magbegor has suffered an injury that has forced her off the court.

Ushering in a new season, rookie camp begins for the Seattle Kraken on Friday. For many Kraken youngsters, rookie camp and the scrimmage against the Vancouver Canucks’ rookies on September 12 and 13 are just the typical preseason rituals. Many of these players will return to their junior team after training camp or are already penciled into the Coachella Valley Firebirds lineup.

But for some of these players, rookie camp serves as an extension of training camp. As part of the new NHL and NHLPA Collective Bargaining Agreement, there’s only four preseason games and training camps were shortened. As a result, many NHL teams have invited youngsters on the bubble of the roster to get them playing early and make early assessments on their opening night rosters.

Looking towards rookie camp, which players bear watching with eyes on earning an AHL or NHL role?

Jani Nyman

Nyman has played parts of two seasons in the NHL and been a great scorer in the AHL.  He averaged just 10:34 of ice time when he played in the NHL last season, and had four goals and seven points in 28 games, not taking quite the jump the organization hoped.

The 22-year-old Nyman is still waivers exempt, and is in a crowded forward group. His previous NHL games played and 49 goals in 117 AHL games might not matter. On the NHL roster, the Kraken has offensive winger options like Jared McCann, Jordan Eberle, Kaapo Kakko, Berkly Catton, and Mackie Samoskevich, who was acquired from the Florida Panthers this offseason. Competing for fourth line minutes, there’s also still recently re-signed Jacob Melanson, Curtis Douglas, Ryan Winterton, and Ben Myers.

Once the preseason comes to a close and the calendar flips to September, Drew Lock knows all too well the reality of being an NFL backup quarterback. After months of receiving ample snaps rotating behind Sam Darnold, with the start of regular season games, those opportunities dry up to next to nothing with the starter getting the lion’s share of snaps for the Seattle Seahawks.

Relegated to scout team duty or watching from the sideline, staying prepared for the possibility of having to actually play on game day can be incredibly tricky. There’s no such thing as being able to replace or replicate live reps on the field, but yet, that’s exactly what backups such as Lock have to try to accomplish with limited practice time being fully dedicated to the starters. There’s no proven, scientific formula to do so, with each backup having his own routine during a game week to remain ready if his number is called.

But now in his eighth season, after leading the Seahawks to a thrilling 13-10 comeback win over the Patriots replacing an injured Darnold in the first quarter on Wednesday night, Lock seems to have found the right recipe in Seattle. His secret? Well, it starts and ends in the bedroom - with a dry erase marker and a whiteboard - for the player defensive tackle Jarran Reed calls “Mr. Clutch.”

“I've got one next to my bed. I'll do it at night and I'll do it in the morning,” Lock explained to reporters after the game. “That's just been my thing, being able to visualize it so when I read it out it's just there in my head. Because of the lack of reps you don't get to physically do it. I got to be able to draw it from somewhere, no pun intended, and drawing it helps me draw it from somewhere.”

SEATTLE, Wash. - Overcoming an early injury that knocked Sam Darnold out of action, the Seattle Seahawks roared back from a 10-point second half deficit to open the 2026 season with a 13-10 win over the New England Patriots.

Filling in admirably for Darnold, Drew Lock outplayed Drake Maye, completing 16 out of 22 passes for 187 yards and a 45-yard touchdown to Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who finished with 122 receiving yards to kick off the new year. The trio of Julian Love, Nehemiah Pritchett, and Josh Jobe recorded fourth quarter interceptions, with the latter picking off Maye in the end zone to ice the game inside 30 seconds to play.

Diving into a wild, adversity-filled opener, here are five takeaways from a big-time win in a Super Bowl LX rematch at Lumen Field:

1. Despite Darnold scare and a slow start for the backup, Lock comes up clutch again in relief.

On the path to a Lombardi Trophy a year ago, Seattle had relatively positive fortunes on the injury front. But only a few minutes into Wednesday’s opener, that luck got twisted upside down in a heartbeat, sending a frenzied crowd into a silenced panic. Sacked by Dre’Mont Jones on third down to end the opening series, Darnold gingerly jogged off, trying to shake off the discomfort as he headed to the sideline. Only a few minutes later, he spent a brief spell in the blue injury tent before hobbling to the locker room, sending Lock in for sub duty.

Bringing a worst case scenario to life for the Seattle Seahawks as they begin their Super Bowl title defense, Sam Darnold exited the field after just one series in Wednesday’s season opener against the New England Patriots with a hip injury.

Replacing Darnold just one drive into the opener, Drew Lock took over at the 7:29 mark after the Seahawks’ defense forced a punt on their opening series.

After his first pass went for 13 yards to Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Darnold uncorked an ugly incompletion and then found himself under duress on the ensuing third down. He managed to escape the initial blitzer with his eyes still scanning downfield, but as he tried to move to his left, he was dragged down by veteran defensive end Dre’Mont Jones for a drive-ending sack.

For the first time in a half decade, September baseball in Seattle does not mean the tension of a playoff chase. Those chases were vain and doomed more often than not, but the exhilaration and anticipation of the first month of fall is not something that shall grace the cooling confines of T-Mobile Park. With the Mariners seven games back of the division lead after their 10-5 loss on Tuesday with 17 left to go, a team who had once been World Series aspirations now looks upon a wholly lost season.

Just as that fact once again became clear on Tuesday, so did another: Lazaro Montes is one of the strongest batsmen on Earth.

The rookie right fielder hit one of the longest homers in Mariners history in the bottom of the fourth against Rangers starter Cal Quantrill, the second of Montes’ career and the first at T-Mobile Park. The 474-footer was the biggest nuke most of those in attendance had ever witnessed - landing on the concourse beyond center field - but for Montes, it was another Tuesday.

“I got a couple, I think in the Dominican Republic, I have one of the long, long, long, long - more than 500 feet, easy,” Montes said. “This is not the only one; I need to now get another one.”

That moment was the sole consolation for a team that had near everything else go wrong in myriad possible ways.

Bryce Miller fell apart early and left before the end of the fourth.

Before Emerson Hancock sustained an injury late in the year, the team had planned to move Bryce Miller to the bullpen and sport a five-man rotation involving the newly-promoted Kade Anderson.

Finally beginning their march to “run it forward” after winning Super Bowl LX in February, the Seattle Seahawks will open their title defense against the same New England Patriots that they defeated in Santa Clara in a statement Week 1 Wednesday night battle at Lumen Field.

While both teams return many of the same players who played in that matchup seven months ago, Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald understands that his team can’t put too much stock into what worked that night in an always unpredictable opener, especially with the changes that the Patriots have made to improve their roster over the course of the offseason.

“First game of the year is a little tricky,” Macdonald said on Saturday. “You don’t want to fall in the trap of applying last year’s things you see too much to what’s going to happen this year. Teams grow and evolve and change and there’s different personnel on both sides. Our focus is trying to do the things that we do that our guys can go play the best they can and also try to apply as much pressure as you can as well but understanding how the game goes, there’s going to be some things that we’re going to be required to make adjustments in game.”

With the Seahawks looking to start off with a win and the Patriots seeking redemption in prime time, which matchups will dictate which reigning conference champion grabs a marquee season opening victory?

TUKWILA, Wash. — Ami Diallo, the Seattle Reign's newest forward who joined the team just last Thursday after signing on Aug. 18, was asked who she liked to watch in the NWSL before she entered the league herself. She thought for a moment and named Brazilian legend Marta. Then, quietly, as is her way, she named Maddie Mercado — her new teammate on the Reign enjoying a breakout season in 2026.

Mercado, whose notoriety is far from that of the great Marta, was on loan this time last season with the Carolina Ascent to get more minutes. The 24-year-old from Notre Dame was struggling to get on the pitch, but scored four goals in just six games for the Ascent, leading Seattle GM Lesle Gallimore to recall her ahead of the NWSL Playoffs. In 2026, a 25-year-old Mercado is up to eight goals to lead the team and has made herself irreplaceable as she tracks toward being the first Reign player to score 10 or more goals since the legendary Megan Rapinoe in 2017 (franchise record 12 goals).

But it's quite apparent that no one, even the Reign in their decision to recall her, believed in Mercado more than she believed in herself.

She put a trigger in her last contract through 2026 that would activate a player option in 2027 if she hit a minutes-played threshold this year. With eight games to play this season, Mercado already hit the threshold to push her deal through the 2027 season.

"This year I kind of had it in my mind that I wanted to earn that," Mercado said of the clause after training on Tuesday. "This year really is the first year where people have seen, I think, what I'm really capable of on the field."

Indeed, Mercado had put up just 587 regular-season minutes in her first two seasons combined after being drafted in 2024, scoring one goal in 19 regular-season appearances. As she pushed her appearances for 2026 up to 22 and her minutes to 1,805, Mercado scored her latest goal on Sunday in a 1-0 win over the San Diego Wave in which she leaped over a defender to head in what would be the game-winning score. It was her seventh game in the last 10 with a goal contribution, as Mercado has manned the right wing consistently with Mia Fishel operating at striker.

As a final tune-up before her sophomore season in Spokane, Gonzaga women’s basketball forward Lauren Whittaker recently participated in the Women’s Olympic Pre-Qualifying Tournament for her home country, New Zealand.

This qualifying round consisted of a series of games over a week-long span, hosted in Mexico. New Zealand was part of Group A, which also included Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, South Sudan, Senegal, and the Philippines. Whittaker got the opportunity to play alongside her sister, Charlotte, a 6-3 forward who played four seasons at Colorado, and against the Zags’ all-time leading scorer, Canadian Yvonne Ejim, who was named to the tournament’s “All-Star Five”.

Canada went 5-0, securing the only available spot to advance to the FIBA Women’s Olympic Qualifying Tournaments in 2028. New Zealand fell to the Canadians in the semifinals, going 2-2 overall, but it was an encouraging stretch for Whittaker, who looks to build on her WCC Player of the Year performance last season.