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Gallery by Lauren Henwood | August 11 2026 Real Salt Lake vs FC Juárez (League Cup) by Lauren Henwood Real Salt Lake continued its strong run in the League Cup on Aug. 11, earning a 3-0 victory over FC Juárez behind three unanswered goals. Morgan Guilavogui opened the scoring before Sergi Solans doubled the lead, and MLS rookie Lineker Rodrigues capped the night with his first career MLS goal in the 68th minute. Real Salt Lake vs FC Juárez (League Cup) by Lauren Henwood The victory gave RSL back-to-back shutouts and extended its active scoreless streak to 264 consecutive minutes. The victory keeps RSL rolling as it returns to MLS regular-season play Saturday against Minnesota United FC.

Interview by Christina Winnegar | August 11 2026 Photo/Video provided by Akeem Baker When the box fell open, it revealed the face of a stranger. At first glance, there was no salient reason the photograph should have carried any meaning. No familiar face filled the frame, no family memory appeared to live inside of it. Until it was turned over, a handwritten note caressed the back of the image, left by the person in the photograph, thanking her dear friend who had stood behind the camera. The face in the photograph belonged to a stranger. But the eye belonged to someone Akeem Baker knew by heart. His mother. Photo/Video provided by Akeem Baker By the time the photograph surfaced among her belongings, she had been gone for nearly a year. Baker was at his grandmother’s house in Denver, Colorado, moving through what remained of a life he had known first as a son, when he first picked up the image. The note was brief, but its existence made the photograph feel larger than the paper holding it. Until that moment, Baker had known his mother in the role that mattered most to him: She was his mom. The photograph revealed another part of her life, the creative behind the camera, an artist whose work had reached beyond their family and become deeply meaningful to someone he had never met. For an 18-year-old still learning how to live among her absence, the photograph did not make the loss easier. It did not answer why she was gone or return any of the moments her passing had taken with her. But it gave the grave loss another perspective. It showed Baker that his mother had left pieces of herself in places he had never known to look. “I think in that moment when I picked up that photo, it just gave me some type of clarity,” he said. “My mom had an impact on people through photography, and I just think she gave me that gift, to pass on that trait of making people feel…giving people a voice through photos.” The clarity did not begin with the box. Long before he had held that photograph in his hands, another image of his mother had already changed the direction of his life. It came to him in a dream, like most things. Baker remembers seeing the scene from above. His mother was in his arms at the ocean. In the dream, she passed there. The next day, he faced a cold reality. She was sick. She had developed cholangiocarcinoma (Bile Duct cancer), a rare disease that was attacking her liver. He was told she might have two months to live. She fought for seven. During those months, a trip was planned to California for his 18th birthday. He wanted to believe they would make it there together, even as part of him understood the possibility they would not. His mother passed shortly before the trip and 30 days before he turned 18. Baker went alone. The trip they had planned together became one he had to experience without her. It was there, inside a journey reshaped by grief, that a camera first found its way into his hands. At the time, there was no career waiting behind the lens. No promise that being a creative would become his profession, connecting him to professional athletes or placing him on commercial sets. There was only a camera, the life in front of it, and the space where his mother was supposed to be. If the trip first placed the camera in Baker’s hands, the words on the back of the stranger's photograph helped him understand why it might matter. It connected what was now in his hands to what had once been in hers. Still, the moment did not announce itself as the beginning of a career. Baker went on about his day, as he remembers it, and did not think too much more about the significance of the photograph. Later that day, a friend invited him to come along for a YouTube video shoot. He held the camera during the shoot, and his first thought was not that he should be the one behind the camera, but that he should begin making YouTube videos of his own. So he decided to go all in, walk into the store, and buy a camera. Photo/Video provided by Akeem Baker He was too excited to wait until he got home to take it out of the packaging. Baker took it out inside the store and walked out into the cold Denver air, while snow was falling, painting the scene for what would become the very moment he fell like a moth to a flame, to the very talent that would once shape his being. A friend became his first subject, standing beside a police car as Baker raised the new camera. More pictures followed outside his grandmother’s house. With every frame, the object in his hands began to feel less like something he had purchased and more like something he had been missing. By his third day, someone had paid him for his work. The money mattered because it proved the instinct could become something tangible. But what held Baker was not the payment. It was the feeling that the camera had opened; a form of expression large enough to hold the creativity he had fostered long before he knew what to title it. Although Nashville, Tennessee, was home first, Denver became the city where that expressive life began to take shape. He spent much of his childhood being directed toward the world of sports. Height created an expectation, and natural ability allowed him to meet it. Neither made the game feel like his calling. Creativity reached his mind more directly. He drew, painted and looked for ways to give form to what existed inside his mind. The camera became another tool, but it was the first one that seemed capable of capturing it all. No professional athletes were waiting for him in the beginning. There was his former high school, where he photographed football players training. There were the streets of Denver, buildings, fragments of architecture, passing strangers and people experiencing homelessness whom much of the city had learned to walk around without taking a second to see. The camera made him slow down. It asked him to notice what was in front of him and decide what deserved to remain present after the moment had passed. The subjects changed from one walk to the next, but the impulse remained: Stay with what another might overlook and create an image capable of asking someone else to stay, too. For roughly a year, Baker photographed nearly anything that gave him a reason to keep the camera in his hands. Some opportunities paid. Many did not. He was not yet moving through Denver with a clear understanding of where the work would lead, he was creating enough of it that, if a door appeared, he would have something ready to carry through. Photo/Video provided by Akeem Baker The first major door did not look like an assignment. It looked like an airport favor for a friend. A friend working security called because Darryl Dwayne Granberry Jr. (DDG) had arrived in Denver with members of his team. No one was available to pick them up, and Baker was asked if he could help. There was no credential attached to the request, no promised payment and no indication the camera he brought would leave its bag. He and another friend collected the group, stopped at Walmart and spent time forming a connection. Somewhere between the airport and the ordinary movement of the day, DDG noticed what Baker was carrying around. He asked if he wanted to photograph the show. The answer was immediate. That night, the venue gave him everything a young photographer could not control, yet he followed the performance through until the show itself broke apart. A fight erupted. A man was punched and fell from the stage. Security moved through the crowd, the people involved were removed, and the night ended before he could place the finished photographs in DDG’s hands. The opportunity appeared to have closed almost as quickly as it opened. Baker and his five friends had pooled their money for one hotel room at the venue. There were more people than beds, more ambition than financial certainty and no guarantee the images would ever reach the person they had been made for. He edited them anyway. The disrupted show did not change what remained on the memory card. If another opening came, the work needed to be ready. That opening arrived inside of an elevator. He was traveling down as DDG was heading up. When the doors separated, the rapper and the finished photographs briefly occupied the same place, at the same time. Baker showed him the images. DDG loved them. He posted them on social media, and the photographs soon went viral. At 19-years-old, approximately one year after purchasing his first camera, Baker watched his work travel farther than his name ever had. Photo/Video provided by Akeem Baker To anyone encountering the photographs online, the breakthrough could have appeared immediate: A young photographer met a famous rapper, captured the right images and received the right post. The finished frames could not show the year of free work behind them. The attention brought more gigs, but it did not create a finished career. Baker still needed rooms in which to sharpen what the one viral post had allowed people to notice. Around that period, and throughout the stretch that followed, concert photography became one of his most important training grounds. The venues were dark, crowded, unpredictable, and every performance required him to anticipate a moment before it existed, hoping to preserve it before it passed. Many of the shows were photographed for free. But for Baker, access was the payment before money was. A credential placed him inside a room. The room gave him a recognizable subject. The finished photographs gave his city another reason to imagine what he could create for them. Lizzy Brodie, a Denver show promoter, helped him enter many of those spaces. She secured media passes, connected him to performances and supported his dream before it carried enough visible proof to support itself. Her access did not guarantee the quality of the work. It allowed him to prove why he deserved to return. “I did a lot of free shows,” Baker said. “People would say, ‘Hey, he worked with this person. How do I get with him now?” The unpaid work slowly but surely created paid opportunities. A photograph of someone recognizable could reach a local artist or business before he had ever introduced himself. Each image became evidence that he could enter a room, understand what mattered inside it and leave with someone people wanted to keep. He learned free work could either exploit a creative or position one. The difference was whether the opportunity created something capable of opening the next door. DDG had shown him how suddenly that door could appear. Concert photography taught him to remain ready when it did. Readiness still had to exist around UPS. Long after DDG posted the photographs, 2 a.m continued to arrive. So did the boxes, the dependable check and the hours before sunrise when the rest of Denver seemed to be living a life that had paused for him. By 9 a.m, the shift was over. Sleep followed until roughly 3 p.m, when another day began inside the one already half-spent. There were photographs to take, edits to finish, and messages to be sent before Baker returned to work and prepared to do it all over again. The camera was introducing Baker to the life he wanted while the overnight shift reminded him that wanting it did not yet make it his. One offered consistency but demanded that his life conform to its hours. The other offered no guarantee at all, yet felt more like his own life each time he entered it. For a while, he attempted to hold both. Then someone from his past placed a different number in front of him. An assignment that paid a couple thousand dollars to photograph a company golf outing. It was more than a good check. It disrupted the argument Baker had been making with himself every morning at UPS. Until then, photography had produced possibility in pieces: a paid shoot on his third day, a credential to a concert, images shared online and another famous name added to his portfolio. None of which had been large enough to silence the practical question waiting beneath the passion. Could the camera sustain a life? For the first time, the answer did not feel out of reach. One person had placed several thousand dollars behind his belief in Baker’s eye. If one person could recognize his value, perhaps another could, too. He quit the job at UPS. The decision frightened his grandmother. To her, the overnight shift was not a dream, but it was stable. It came with predictable money and the kind of security families learn to value after living without enough, and being a creative offered none of those promises. He understood the concern. He had spent countless hours working beside people who told him they had spent over 20 years in the same job. They spoke about places they had never visited and time that had moved without asking whether they were prepared to lose it. Their choices were not failures; they were choices based on what survival required. But listening to them made Baker afraid of a different kind of loss, not losing the job, but losing the years. “I’m heaving on high risk, high reward,” he shared. The risk became real almost immediately. The homeowners association at his grandmother’s community learned Baker was living with her. The neighborhood carried an age restriction he did not meet, and the family was given a choice: Either his grandmother would have to leave, or he would. He left. The freedom he had chosen did not look like freedom then. There was no permanent home waiting beyond the UPS doors, no apartment secured by the golf check and no quiet period in which to build a business without wondering where his body would rest at the end of the day. Some nights ended on couches. Others ended inside his car. Online, the portfolio continued to grow. The images were polished, opportunities appeared promising, and the name behind them seemed to be moving closer to the life he imagined. Outside the frame, that same person could not always say where he would sleep. At points, only a few hundred dollars remained. Food security became uncertain. The camera was valuable enough to open doors but not yet enough to guarantee there would be a door to sleep behind. Clients still expected their work. Deadlines did not soften because the person responsible for meeting them was struggling. An image could be delivered without revealing the car outside, the temporary couch or the calculation of whether there was enough money to eat. Photo/Video provided by Akeem Baker Photography had taught Baker how much a frame could reveal. Homelessness taught him how much it could hide. There was no dignity in the struggle itself. Sleeping in a car did not make Baker more talented, and hunger did not make the finished work more meaningful. Hardship remained hardship, even after it became part of a story that others could later call inspiring. What mattered was that the instability did not convince him to stop. “You kind of have to be obsessed with it,” Baker said. “To the point where this is all I’m going to do and there’s no other way. I don’t care if I’m homeless, if I ain’t got no money, whatever that looks like. I’m going all in to make this the main thing.” Going all in did not mean he never questioned the decision. During the moments when the dream appeared least practical, Baker brought those questions to God. “Even when I was feeling discouraged, I just turned to God,” he said. “I’m like, ‘Am I making the right moves here? Is this the right thing for me to do? Do I keep going?’” His grandmother thought he was crazy. Other people could not understand why he had quit a stable job, packed his life or continued pursuing a future they could not see. But at the heart of his heart, he believes some things in life are for you to understand and not for other people to understand. He did not have the privilege of knowing how the story would end. He had faith that the next step would reveal itself once he reached it. The next one looked like a baby shower. Baker’s barber was expecting a child and needed photographs from the shower. There wasn't much money attached to the request, but there was an offer: document the day in exchange for free haircuts for a year. In the economy of survival, value did not always arrive as cash. So, he accepted. He came to the shower from the same car he had been sleeping in, prepared to make the photographs, complete the trade and move toward whatever came next. Then a watch caught his attention. It was expensive, far beyond anything Baker could imagine purchasing at that point in his life. The young man wearing it did not seem much older than him, which made the object feel less like decoration and more like evidence. Photo/Video provided by Akeem Baker The man was JL Skinner, a safety for the Denver Broncos. Baker pulled up his Instagram and showed him the work. Skinner looked through the photographs and said they should create something together. It was the kind of promise people make easily at events: generous enough to feel sincere in the moment but vague enough never to become real afterward. Skinner walked away, looked through more of the portfolio and returned. He repeated it. They were going to work together. Two days later, with Skinner’s birthday approaching, a message appeared. This time, the promise came with a date. The shoot created time for conversation beyond the brief introduction at the shower. Somewhere between the images and the discussion of the work, the life behind Baker’s portfolio and drive entered the room. The car, the temporary places, the reality that whatever arrangement was keeping him indoors at that moment could end without warning. Skinner listened; he mentioned an extra room. Baker could stay there. The offer was almost too large for the amount of time they had known each other. Days earlier, Skinner had been a stranger wearing an expensive watch at a baby shower. Now, he was opening his home to someone who had arrived carrying a camera and no dependable place to return to. Baker packed what he had. A room and a closet represented more than shelter. They offered the ability to close the door at night and know he would still be allowed to open it the following morning. The stability gave his belongings somewhere to remain, his body somewhere to rest and his creativity the time it needed to continue fostering. It gave the dream somewhere to sleep. For the first several days, Baker noticed Skinner leaving the house without understanding where he was going. Eventually, he asked. “Training camp, fool,” Skinner told him. Players’ families and guests were allowed to attend. Baker began going, too. The field placed him near a world he had been trying to enter without college credentials, institutional backing or a traditional route into professional sports. Suddenly, the people who had existed at a distance were standing within reach. Player saw the content he had been producing with Skinner. Families noticed the camera. Conversations began. Pat Surtain II approached him there. But proximity did not immediately become a partnership. Surtain knew who Baker was. That did not mean he was ready to hire him. For the next two years, Baker sent messages. Some received an answer, while others sat untouched. There were stretches when the thread looked less like conversation than a record of one person refusing to stop believing another opportunity would come. “People don’t know, I was hounding him for two years to get him as a client,” he said. “It didn’t just happen.” The messages continued through months when it appeared Baker was speaking only to himself. “I literally was talking to myself for months on end,” he said. I’m the type of person where I don’t take no for an answer. I’m going to wait. I don’t care how long it takes, but it’s going to happen for me.” Persistence did not mean he was entitled to Surtain’s time. It meant he refused to interpret “not yet” as “never.” Eventually, the answer changed. Surtain became a client. By then, the finished product he provided could make the relationship appear inevitable. Baker had lived with one Broncos player and was creating with another. His work had entered the National Football League (NFL) without the college media program he once believed he needed. The traditional route had closed before he could begin walking through it. He had applied to nearly every major college media program he could find and was met with a rejection from each one. There would be no campus credential, no internship, no established program placing him beside a professional team, and no institutional name assuring people he deserved to be there. His life assembled another route. “I ended up skipping from college to the NFL,” Baker said. “I poured into my craft, and I poured into myself, and I just left God take the rest.” Almost none of it happened in the order a résumé would know how to explain. The NFL was not the end of his development. It was another room, and photography had already taught him that entering one only mattered if he remained willing to grow inside it. For years, a single frame had been enough. It allowed him to isolate the instant that mattered and ask a viewer to look longer than they otherwise might. As the work grew, however, so did a feeling that something remained outside the image. Approximately a year and a half ago, he began to make the shift toward video. Part of the decision was practical. Photography allowed him to charge for the images made during a shoot. Video expanded what he could offer: the original concept, filming, editing, pacing and the ability to shape an entire story from beginning to end. Yet the business opportunity could not fully explain why the medium began to hold him. “I was telling stories through photography, but I felt like I was missing something,” Baker said. “I felt like video was kind of that way to expand the creativity that I was having in my brain.” A photograph could hold one fraction of a second. Video, however, offered the moments beyond it, the anticipation before an athlete moved and the time required for an emotion to become recognizable to an audience. It gave him the ability to do more than show someone what happened. He could guide them toward how it felt to be captured. The expansion continued after his work began reaching larger audiences. He studied established filmmakers, but he also watched creators with a small following. Recognition did not determine whether someone had made a choice worth learning from. “I’m just a sponge to everything,” he expressed. “You have to be that in any craft you’re in, regardless of what tier or what your ranking is or how people view you.” Photo/Video provided by Akeem Baker One of his favorite recent concepts for Surtain began without a brief, a field or a specific assignment. He was bored in his room when pieces of an idea began to come together. He kept building until the experiment resembled something he wanted another person to feel. Other projects arrived through relationships in the willingness of another creative to say his name when the opportunity appeared. When a friend was offered a Hydro Flask project but could not accept, he passed it to Baker. The film centered on a professional ice skater, allowing him to tell the person’s story rather than treating the product as the only subject. The company liked the result enough that the work led elsewhere. The next opportunity brought him to Arizona to create a Wendy's commercial with a professional basketball player who had joined the Phoenix Suns. This time, he did not simply operate the camera. He was given full creative control, wrote the script, developed the concept and helped carry the film from its earliest idea through production. A friend's scheduling conflict became a Hydro-Flask film. The Hydro Flask film became proof that he could be trusted with Wendy's. Each project entered the next room before Baker did, speaking for him before he had the opportunity to speak for himself. That pattern repeated tenfold during Super Bowl LX weekend in San Francisco, California. Baker and a friend traveled there without a list of confirmed jobs. Their Guest house stay was little to no comfort, and there was no promise that the trip would produce enough work to justify taking it. The plan was simply to be close enough if something happened. Something did. A production needed a second camera operator with a Sony FX6 for a Post Malone project connected to Bud Light. The call reached Baker's friend, and his knowledge allowed him to step in. After filming, the camera operators handed over their memory cards. A large system was used to adjust the footage, separate the feeds and assemble the material with the speed that stunned him. Within approximately 10 to 15 minutes, he could watch the show organized on an iPad while the remaining color work waited to be completed. The teenager who once photographed a friend beside a police car in the Denver snow was now standing on a Post Malone production during Super Bowl weekend. The distance between those scenes appeared enormous. In reality, it had been crossed through hundreds of smaller decisions. Ones of bringing a camera on an airport favor, editing photographs after a show ended in a fight with no guarantee of returning them, sacrificing comfort not to remain stagnant, accepting a seemingly unreal offer from a stranger and continuing to pursue a dream even when the person on the other side was not returning the energy. “It’s not about what you know. It’s about who you know,” he expressed. The sentence did not diminish the importance of skill. A relationship could recommend him for a set; only the work could prove that the recommendation was deserved. Football had led him toward basketball, photography toward filmmaking and one relationship toward another, all in the pursuit of connection. Photo/Video provided by Akeem Baker The names had become larger: Pat Surtain II, Nik Bonitto, JL Skinner, Bo Nix and Post Malone. Alongside, the brands had too: Wendy’s, Hydro Flask and Bud Light. Yet listing them said little about what the work demanded from the person carrying it. Social media gifts, creative work, and the appearance of inevitability. The final film arrives with its color corrected, its pacing deliberate, and the strongest moments placed exactly where they belong. Nothing inside it reveals the hours when a creator cannot find the idea or when opening the project felt more exhausting than finishing it. Baker experienced days when he did not want to touch a camera or look at a computer. Clients still called, and the deadlines remained where they had been placed. The pressure to produce did not disappear because the mind responsible for producing had reached its limit. “People kind of look at us like robots, like we can just go, go, go and don’t need mental stability or a mental break,” he expressed. “I think it can get hard on anybody.” Eventually, the work became overwhelming enough that he stepped away for several weeks. There were no shoots and no edits. He needed a distance from the expectation that loving the work meant being endlessly capable of completing it. The break was not evidence that he cared less. It was evidence that caring required something from him. That distinction mattered because his creativity had always depended upon feeling. Bigger wanted an audience to experience emotion through his work, yet the person behind the camera cannot remain emotionally available without rest to harvest that creativity. “They [people on the outside] don’t see the hardship that you go through,” he said. “They see the glamour of working with all these athletes, travel, and stuff like that.” The glamour cannot show homelessness. It cannot show a bank account reduced to a few hundred dollars, the uncertainty of whether there would be enough to eat or the client who still expected their work while he slept inside a car. Even after Baker moved from that period, it remained part of the way he understood success. He had not risen because the hardship transformed into something beautiful. He wrote because the hardship was not given the authority to decide where his story ended. Faith carried him through parts no portfolio could display. It gave him somewhere to place fear when there was no visible evidence the decision would work. It allowed him to believe another door existed beyond the one that closed, even when he was standing outside with nowhere to sleep. The career he eventually built did not prove every risk should be taken. It proved that his had been rooted in something deeper than the desire to be seen. For Baker, freedom was never the absence of work. It was the ability to choose what the work would serve. He understood that a traditional job could provide stability, but no longer believed that permanence was the same. A manager could decide the following morning that the employee was no longer needed. A dependable position could disappear without the years devoted to it ever being returned. The greater fear was not that pursuing the camera might fail. It was that refusing to pursue it might work. When asked to identify the reason beneath all that risk, Baker did not name a client, a financial goal or the possibility of becoming widely known for his work. He named his 12-year-old brother. Both learned loss early. The man Baker describes as his father, his stepfather, who helped raise him from approximately age 6 until age 15, died by suicide while he was in high school. His younger brother was 6-years-old when he lost his father and 8-years-old when their mother passed. Since their mother passed 30 days before Baker turned 18-years-old, he was not legally positioned to assume custody. Their uncle became the younger boy’s guardian, separating the brothers during a period when each was attempting to understand how the same family could disappear around them. The distance remains present in ordinary ways. Baker cannot see his brother every day. He misses family time, conversations and part of young adulthood that do not wait for a production schedule to become convenient. If he cannot always be physically present, he wants the life he builds to remain visible enough to teach something in his absence. “He’s the reason why I carry myself the way I carry myself,” Baker said. “I’ve got to be that person. I can’t be setting any less of an example.” That responsibility reaches into how he speaks and what he allows into his life. Photo/Video provided by Akeem Baker The example is not meant to prescribe a particular career. He could pursue any honest work. What he aims to demonstrate is understanding the discipline required to choose a life intentionally. He wants his brother to know the finished result did not appear without a cost. There was homelessness, uncertainty and rejection. Some decisions worked, and others created consequences. If the younger boy can see the full process, perhaps he can carry forward its useful pieces without repeating every painful one. “I’ve got to struggle for him to see what’s the right way,” He explained. “It kind of also gives him a path.” The role Baker occupies cannot be contained by one family title. “Whatever he needs me to be, I want to be that person,” he said. He calls his brother his second half. That description changes what that achievement means. Recognition may open doors, and money may provide security their family once lacked. Neither matters if obtaining it requires Baker to be someone he would not want his brother to follow. The responsibility to become that man begins before his day does. “Keeping God at the center of everything that you’re doing – that has to be your number one priority,” he said. “I pray before my feet touch the ground. I’m praying before I get in the car.” Faith provides the structure through which he understands the web between work, family and the losses that altered both. It also gave him somewhere to direct the questions that followed his decision to pursue creativity when nearly everyone around him believed he was making a mistake. His grandfather helped form that practice. Bigger describes him as deeply prayerful and wise, “everything I want to be as a man.” Prayer came from watching that example and from a family value centered around gratitude. Without it, he believes he would lack the guidance required to become everything. He and his family need him to be. To him, faith is not as foreign as people sometimes make it sound. Trust already structures ordinary life, even when no one names it. “You have faith in everything,” he expressed. “Every day, you have faith when you go to sleep. You have faith that you're going to wake up in the morning. When you get on that plane, you have faith that the pilot is going to land the plane safely. You have faith that when you're driving, everybody's going to stay in their lane. You have faith unknowingly every single day.” Baker intentionally chooses to make that faith deliberate. Looking back, he believes God was teaching him to remain where his feet were, be patient and recognize the value of steps that felt too small while he was taking them. Immediate success, in his view, would have removed the meeting created by waiting. “How would it be if God gave us everything we asked for today?” he asked. “It wouldn't mean anything. It's like giving somebody plastic flowers. They don't mean as much because you know they last forever.” Real flowers matter partly because they do not remain unchanged. Their impermanence creates the need to notice them while they are alive. Faith, however, is not something. Baker believes God forces upon a person. “I think God is super polite,” he expressed. “He doesn't come barging in. He waits at the door. You've got to let him in.” If his grandfather gave him the foundation of prayer, his grandmother gave him the language of humility. Be humble. Be honorable. Remember where you came from. The instruction remained as the rooms changed around them. He grew up, wearing the same clothes repeatedly and living without things others growing up possessed. Entering spaces filled with money, celebrity, and professional athletes did not erase the young person who knew what it felt like not to have enough. “I don’t care if I make the biggest movie in the world,” he said. “I’m still going to be me.” The program, as he understands it, is larger than any athlete, filmmaker, paycheck, or credit. Money can change with a person possesses without determining who that person is. He has met people whose wealth becomes their personality and others whose financial position says nothing about their courage. Humility also requires refusing to hoard access once it arrives. When friends expressed a desire to photograph professional athletes, Baker did not treat those rooms as something only he had earned the right to enter. He brought them onto projects with athletes like Surtain and allowed them to experience proximity someone else had once offered him. The instinct mirrors the generosity he once encountered from Skinner and Surtain. One provided a room where he needed somewhere to live. Both offered help and access without treating their positions as reasons to remain different. “I think these gifts aren’t just for us, but also to give and to spread,” Baker said. “That’s why I love being a creative. I get to spread these stories and this empowerment.” A door had opened for him. Holding it for someone else became part of what it meant to walk through. Most people will first encounter Baker through the polished version of his work: A film shared by an athlete, a campaign created for a brand or a name placed in the credits. A portfolio can tell them what he produces, but it cannot fully explain who had to survive to produce it. Photo/Video provided by Akeem Baker That visibility is necessary. It is also incomplete. “A lot of times, people love you for what you do, not who you are,” he reflected. “I want people to know me a little bit, scratch the surface.” Beneath the finished work is the son who found part of his mother in a stranger's photograph. There is a teenager who traveled to California without her, the young photographer who worked through the night, the struggling creative who continued delivering his best while at his worst. There is a stranger who accepted another stranger, spare room, a rejected college applicant, who entered the NFL through a path, no institution, how prepared for him, and the older brother attempting to become every person his sibling might need. There is also a man whose faith has taught him to place his feet on the ground only after praying over the day, waiting for them. If a viewer walks away from his art with anything, Baker hopes it is not only an understanding of his technical ability. He wants to work to reach whatever emotion that person was already carrying and give it somewhere to exist. “I just hope that when they look at my art, they feel something,” he said. “That it brings them joy, or it helps whatever emotion they're going through at the time. I just hope it causes impact and makes you want to rewatch it again and again.” The ambition is not simply to create imagery people remember. It is to create one that remembers them. Years before the NFL fields commercial sets and recognizable names that made strangers pay attention to his portfolio, A box fell open inside his grandmother's home. The face looking back did not belong to anyone he knew. But the care behind the image did. Photo/Video provided by Akeem Baker The camera she once carried became his way of moving through the world, but the deeper inheritance was never the object itself. It was the responsibility to notice, the willingness to feel and the choice to make another person believe their life was worth preserving. What began with grief carried Baker through trials and tribulations. What kept him moving was faith. Faith that another door exists to be beyond the one that closed. Faith that his gifts were meant to be shared. Faith that the life he cannot yet see was being formed beneath his feet. The frame now holds rooms he once had no way to enter. But the purpose remains where it began: In the hands of a son, a brother, a man, discovering that his mother had left him more than something to remember. She left him a way to make others feel remembered, too. And with the Lord always before him and at his right hand, Akeem Baker is becoming the man who shall never be moved.

Written by Alex Tran | Photos by Orchee Sorker | August 9th, 2026 Situated right on the border between Minnesota and Wisconsin, La Crosse seems like your average small Midwestern city. From the cascading green forests that paint the rocky, rugged mountains to the fluffy snow layers in the winter, it is no wonder that 25-year-old Sawyer Utah can only reminisce about his hometown. While Utah may be considered young for the industry, he has already built a name for himself. Utah has been credited alongside fellow artist Zach Hood with writing and producing hits like “Middle of Nowhere” and “Beautiful As You,” garnering over 10 million combined streams. Now, Utah has produced and published two EPs, “WHEREVER U ARE ★” and “WHEN THE SUN GOES DOWN ★,” gaining over three million streams collectively. With Utah’s new single “THRILL” released Aug. 7th, he sat down for two interviews with HAZZE Media, sharing highlights from his journey as a young artist and the numerous challenges along the way. Who is Sawyer Utah? Born in La Crosse, Wisconsin, Utah was not born with music producer parents or someone with a foot in the industry. Utah credits growing up attending a Waldorf school for his music passion. “I think they so support the arts and just the creative side of things.” Utah says “not having as much homework and kind of having more outside time” encouraged him to pick up other hobbies, like playing the guitar. “We couldn't have screens there so it was just more of all arts and creativity and just letting our minds kind of figure things out. I think that had a big impact on why I just always came back to the guitar when I went home and that was, you know, writing songs or going to play open mics.” Utah’s time at Waldorf spearheaded his passion for music and the arts. After Utah’s mother bought him his first baby Taylor guitar, six-year-old Utah began practicing the guitar with an instructor and found comfort in the vibrating strings. Outside of Waldorf, Utah also recalled watching many episodes of American Idol, with former contestants like Chris Daughtry being one of the memorable clips he watched. Utah admits that, after some time watching the show, he applied online to be a contestant. However, with show choir and other responsibilities leaving Utah little time to prepare, he believes the lack of preparation was why he did not make it onto the show. While Utah has been open about going to a Waldorf school, he shared how even beyond his time at Waldorf he was getting support from his teachers and community around him. Utah recalls how a choir teacher in high school supported his song writing early on. “I just remember vividly in my senior year, I was writing songs and I was producing and stuff and I asked her, ‘is it cool, like once or twice a week, if instead of choir class, I go into this practice room’ and there was a little studio setup, and I was like, ‘is okay if I just write songs?’ And she was like, ‘yeah, it's all good.’ And so like, it was little things like that, that people just understood how inspired I was by music and stuff. And I'm so grateful for those people along the way, because, I mean, she didn't have to do that at all.” Despite many people within Utah’s community supporting his talents, the boundaries of his home town would soon expand. Travels with Utah Utah’s professional growth as an artist did not begin until his travels post-high school and well after the COVID-19 pandemic. Places like Los Angeles and New York City were places Utah spoke about fondly. Utah was “soaking in so much more different life and just being surrounded by so many different people,” which impacted his creative writing and creative outlets. However, Utah would often travel solo at such a young age, with minimal friends or family in many of these places he found himself at. Through songwriting, Utah coped with these moments of solace, with tracks like “Old Me” becoming byproducts of these solo writing sessions. Those moments did not deter Utah from traveling either. Utah had the opportunity to work with new people in the music industry, like Benzi Edelson, a music producer at Arcade Songs. While working with Edelson, Utah talked about how he created his first single “Nights Like This” and the inspiration behind the track. “I remember ‘Nights Like This’, we were doing such late nights. We were in Manhattan, I think it was like the 10th floor or something, so you could see the buildings literally in the middle of the city.” And, while recalling details about Edelson's old studio, like the H&M building across from them, he saw the inspiration for his first ever single. “And man, we would go up there and I remember making that song and just like looking over the city of Manhattan, it's like 1a.m. That's where ‘Nights Like This’ came from. I was literally just looking over the city, so inspired, it's like, ‘wow, like we're on top of New York City right now.’” As traveling continued to play a massive role within his career, Utah naturally decided it was time to move out of La Crosse, with his heart set on what is known as “Music City.” The Life Beyond La Crosse As Utah approaches his eighth year in Nashville, Tennessee, he continues to focus on building authenticity and his own identity as an artist. Utah and Hood have co-written and co-produced often, with their recent track, “DAREDEVIL,”marking their eleventh collaboration. Utah describes how these collaborations with artists go beyond making music with each other. “Any artist I'm working with has to feel comfortable with me and like telling their life story, really because the only way to get to the best inner lyric that we want to get to that connects with them and other people is through that. So, I think that's such an important part that I am always striving to make the room comfortable, whether it be just like their favorite drinks on hand or whatever it is, just always having things that make them in their best creative process…” While Utah is known for his collaborative work, his solo work is where his creativity and skills are on full display. His most recent EP “WHEN THE SUN GOES DOWN ★”, features eight tracks from multiple periods in his life. While tracks like “LADY,” “CARS,” and “play with my heart” were created within six months of the original publishing of the EP, tracks like “circles” were created back in 2022. Rather than scrapping his old work, Utah held all of his incomplete work in a folder in case, upon revisiting, he could make it work. By reworking his older tracks and integrating them into his current projects, many of his songs become a reflection of his developing sound and production. When Utah does experience extended periods of writer's block, he resorts to partaking in his daily routine or hobbies, like skiing and occasionally driving an RC plane over the skies of Nashville. With several years of experience and two EPs under his belt, one must ask how Utah is able to navigate the pressures of the industry and being an artist in the 21st century. Where is Utah Now? Utah went into depth about the intricacies of the music industry. From publishing to labels and record production, it can be confusing for young artists with minimal experience. But, Utah also has to overcome a new endeavor many artists also are still figuring out: social media. Because of Utah’s limited access to a phone growing up, he discusses how he is still trying to strike a balance between promotional material and making his presence online feel authentic. “I sometimes feel like I'm a little behind when it comes to social media just as a whole. I've always learned things from people, but I think it will always be a work in progress for me. And I'm always just trying to as much as just represent myself when I'm posting and just try to have the online version of me be the same as who I am is like something I'm always trying to be better at and do. So, hopefully, someday I'll feel like ‘okay, it's exactly like me.’ I think it's closer than ever…” One way Utah is attempting to make up for his perceived lack of social media knowledge is by bringing his gratitude directly to his fans. Whether it is Utah trying to “respond to any message” he receives across his social media platforms or interacting with fans at past tour events, Utah says he wants to always give back to fans that express a deep connection to his music. That idea of giving does not stop at his fans. Utah expressed his desire to move the goalpost for himself but acknowledges he needs to give back to himself in a way that is uniquely him. “I think you can so easily just be caught in the, ‘... I need another, I need a big song, I need this, I need that, I need a video to go viral, all that stuff.’ But, trying to just stay in the moment and enjoy every step of the way is something I'm always thinking about. Like the goalpost thing, I think it’s right when you get something that you really want, right away I'm going to be like, ‘Oh, but what if I also do this next?’ and so it's like going to be forever… That's just how I am.” From the small recording booth in Utah’s high school to the studios in Nashville, he may have moved beyond the geographic boundaries of his hometown, but his love for community and being in the moment remains. Disclosure: The interview opportunity was facilitated by HAZZE’s Press Director, who also serves as the artist’s creative director. She did not participate in the writing or editing of this article. Editor’s note: This article was updated on Aug. 10, 2026, at 1:53pm to clarify that the releases referenced as albums are EPs. The artist informed HAZZE that Spotify and other online sources incorrectly classify the releases as albums.

by Ava Heaton | August 10 2026 Photo owned by Dallas Cowboys For decades, one of the safest bets in professional sports was playing at home. In the 80’s and 90’s, home venues were feared. Visiting teams walked into hostile environments, slept in subpar hotels and faced officials who were subtly (or sometimes not so subtly) swayed by tens of thousands of screaming local fans. Whether it was a National Basketball Association (NBA) court, a National Football League (NFL) field, or a National Hockey League (NHL) rink, playing at home offered a distinct edge. According to Statmuse, during the 1985-86 NBA season, the Boston Celtics led the league in home winning percentage at 97.6%. During the 2025-26 season however, the Oklahoma City Thunder led in the statistic with just an 81% winning percentage at home. Over the past two decades, sports analytics have revealed a quiet revolution: home-field, home-court, and home-ice advantages are shrinking rapidly. Across major leagues, home winning percentages have drifted closer to a coin toss than ever before. So what happened to the legendary power of playing at home? Seemingly the biggest factor in home advantage in the past was biased officiating. Referees and umpires are human, and humans naturally seek social confirmation. When 20,000 superfans roar in unison demanding a penalty in hockey or a pass interference call in football, officials experience subtle psychological pressure. However, modern sports technology has made it increasingly difficult for referees to have official bias. The evolution and normalization of video reviews and instant replay, allowing officials to overturn calls with ease leaves far less room for blatant bias. Subconscious mistakes made in the heat of the moment are routinely corrected by neutral video review centers. While not always perfect, the system has certainly helped the cause. Not to mention, there are so many ways to keep track of officiating accuracy now with X pages such as @UmpScorecards making it clear to the public which officials are more accurate in their calls. As discretionary calls dropped, the automatic edge for home teams shrank across all major sports. Photo owned by New York Knicks When considering home-field advantage, the subject of travel is another thing to take into account. In earlier eras, being the away team meant commercial flights, early morning check-ins, poor sleep hygiene, and limited food options. A hockey team on a four-game road trip or a football team crossing multiple time zones was physically compromised long before the opening whistle. Today, sports science has fundamentally altered the road trip experience across all leagues. Professional teams now fly on private planes customized with extra legroom, high-end catering, and tailored schedules. Plus, professional organizations employ sleep scientists and other specialists there specifically to help with recovery both physically and mentally. Not to mention they can take recovery equipment with them on the road and leagues have become a lot more forgiving when creating season schedules, splitting up travel days as ideally as possible. Because visiting athletes arrive healthier, better rested, and better recovered, the physical tax of being on the road has decreased. While psychological and travel-related advantages have faded, biology remains resilient. A small handful of franchises maintain a persistent, above-average home advantage: teams based at high elevation. Apr 21, 2026; Denver, Colorado, USA; Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon (29) controls the puck under pressure from Los Angeles Kings defenseman Cody Ceci (5) in the second period in game two of the first round of the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Ball Arena. Mandatory Credit: Isaiah J. Downing-Imagn Images The Denver Nuggets (NBA), Colorado Avalanche (NHL), and Denver Broncos (NFL) play a mile above sea level. Visiting players acclimated to sea-level oxygen pressures experience genuine strain, reduced oxygen saturation, and faster onset of fatigue at higher altitudes. Because technological advancements cannot change how human lungs absorb oxygen in thin air, altitude remains one of the few unhackable home advantages in modern sports. Home advantage is far from dead, but its nature has fundamentally changed. Arenas, stadiums, and rinks are no longer untouchable locations where victory is probable regardless of matchup quality. Fans still provide crucial emotional chants, and eliminating travel is impossible. However, through unbiased officiating data, sleep science, and modern tactics, visiting teams have successfully dismantled the invisible barriers that once made playing on the road so daunting. In today's sports landscape, playing at home offers familiarity, but victory still has to be earned entirely on the surface. Disclaimer: The views, analysis, and opinions expressed in this op-ed are of the writer. All information is for commentary and informational purposes only and is not intended as legal, professional, or investment advice. References to third-party sources and public figures are made for illustrative purposes and do not imply endorsement or verification by HAZZE MEDIA.

Interview by Holly Arend | August 8 2026 Photos provided by Jacob Trouba On canvas, Jacob Trouba is not the defenseman known for punishing hits and a hard edge. He is trying to slow things down, hold onto a moment long enough that it means something later. Trouba said he started painting about three years ago after a friend invited him to a studio, and what began as curiosity became a way to make something outside the pace and pressure of hockey. At first, he said, it was not about building a public identity. It was about finding a different kind of room to think in. “The story kind of connects the art,” Trouba said. “When you see the piece, the background and the story really kind of brings it full circle.” He described the paintings as a kind of visual journal, a record of what each season of his life felt like at the time. “I guess these are moments in my life,” he said. “It’s kind of like journaling, I guess, in a way.” He said he does not always think about preserving a moment while he is painting, but time changes the meaning of the work. What starts as an image becomes a memory, then a marker of where he was emotionally when he made it. “It’ll always kind of remain as my moment in time,” he said. That matters because Trouba has also spent much of his career dealing with how other people choose to see him. He said there has long been a focus on his physical style and the opinions that came with it, and that painting gave him a way to respond in his own voice. “You get put in a box or painted a certain way,” he said. “This was just a way of controlling the narrative.” Photos provided by Jacob Trouba For Trouba, that is part of the appeal. He is not just painting. He is complicating the easy version of himself. “There’s more to people, to athletes, to I guess everyone than just what you see on the surface,” he said. “Dig a little bit deeper, and you’ll find more about people.” What started privately eventually grew into something more public. Trouba said he first tried painting something for his son’s room, but the hobby expanded into a broader creative practice. He and his wife then built the Trouba Creative Expressions Art Program as part of their charitable work, giving adults with epilepsy a chance to create and share art. Photos provided by Jacob Trouba The most powerful part, he said, was not the idea on paper but the people standing in front of their own work. “To see how proud they were to show their work,” he said, “that was more rewarding than I could have thought.” He said the program also created conversations that made the project feel more personal, especially around epilepsy and shared experience. It became a place where art opened the door to something else, something more human and immediate. That same idea carried into Trouba’s first public exhibition, “Landing My Mark,” which opened in Manhattan and marked an important step in bringing the work beyond his own studio. The show gave the paintings a larger audience and gave the stories behind them a different kind of life. Photos provided by Jacob Trouba Now, he is preparing for what comes next. His upcoming show opens Aug. 8 at ASU Art Museum, another chance to put the work in front of people and let it speak on its own terms. His website, Jacob Trouba Art, also features limited-edition prints based on his canvases, extending that same idea in a different form. Trouba said the art and the website serve the same purpose, which is to make sure the story travels with the work. During the season, he keeps the creative side alive by reading books, watching videos and visiting museums on road trips or off days. In the summer, he paints more often and gives that side of his life more room. “I think it’s helped my athletic side,” he said. “It’s healthy. There’s a lot of hockey in here, but it’s just kind of a different mental head space.” That balance seems to be the point. Hockey and art are not competing identities for Trouba. They are different ways of making sense of the same life. One is force and reaction. The other is patience and reflection. Together, they give him a fuller picture of himself. For Trouba, the canvas is not an escape from hockey. It is another way to keep track of where he has been, what he has felt and how he wants the story to travel with him.

Gallery by Lauren Henwood | August 4 2026 Real Salt Lake vs Tigres UANL by Lauren Henwood Real Salt Lake battled Tigres UANL to a 1-1 draw in its League Cup opener before falling 6-5 in a penalty shootout on Wednesday night. Tigres struck first through Juan Brunetta before Pablo Ruiz equalized in the first half, scoring his first goal since 2023 to level the match. With neither side able to find a winner in regulation, the match was decided in penalties. Zach Booth's missed attempt gave Tigres the advantage before Alan Franco converted the decisive spot kick to secure the extra point in the shootout victory. Real Salt Lake vs Tigres UANL by Lauren Henwood

Gallery by Isatuu Lamarana | July 29 2026 Toronto Maple Leafs vs Brantford Red Sox by Isatuu Lamarana The Toronto Maple Leafs used a dominant offensive start to defeat the Brantford Red Sox 15-11 on Thursday night, highlighted by a seven-RBI performance from Yasiel Puig. Toronto Maple Leafs vs Brantford Red Sox by Isatuu Lamarana

Galley by Lauren Henwood | August 2 2026 Utah Royals FC vs Portland Thorns by Lauren Henwood Utah Royals turned an early setback into a statement win, scoring five unanswered goals to defeat the Portland Thorns 5-1 on Sunday at America First Field. After Sophia Wilson gave Portland the lead just 35 seconds into the match, Cece Delzer responded with a first-half brace to shift the momentum and earn Player of the Match honors. Brecken Mozingo, Kiana Palacios and Kate Del Fava also scored as the Royals cruised to the convincing victory. Utah Royals FC vs Portland Thorns by Lauren Henwood These photos are owned by Hazze Media and the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL). They may not be redistributed, sold, or used for commercial purposes without explicit permission.

Gallery by Amanda LaMonda | August 1 2026 Tampa Bay Rowdies vs Louisville City FC by Amanda LaMonda The Tampa Bay Rowdies erased a three-goal halftime deficit to defeat Louisville City FC 5-4 on Saturday night in one of the club's most dramatic comebacks of the season. Trailing 3-0 at the break, the Rowdies stormed back behind two goals each from Russell Cicerone and MD Myers, while Marco Micaletto also found the back of the net. Myers completed the comeback with the game-winning goal in the 89th minute to cap Tampa Bay's five-goal second half. Tampa Bay Rowdies vs Louisville City FC by Amanda LaMonda The victory keeps the Rowdies atop the Eastern Conference standings as they prepare to face Orange County SC next weekend.

Gallery by Isatuu Lamarana | July 28 2026 AFC Toronto vs Calgary Wild FC by Isatuu Lamarana AFC Toronto earned a 1-0 victory over Calgary Wild FC on Tuesday night at York Lions Stadium, extending its strong run of form with another clean sheet. After a scoreless first half, Kaylee Hunter broke the deadlock in the 50th minute by converting a penalty kick for the match's only goal. Hunter's finish proved to be the difference as Toronto held off Calgary the rest of the way. AFC Toronto vs Calgary Wild FC by Isatuu Lamarana Goalkeeper Sabrina D'Angelo and the AFC Toronto defense turned in a disciplined performance to preserve the shutout, limiting Calgary's scoring opportunities and securing all three points. The win keeps AFC Toronto near the top of the Northern Super League standings as the club prepares for its next matchup

Gallery by Holly Arend | July 30 2026 Shoulder Check Showcase by Holly Arend The Shoulder Check Showcase continues to prove hockey's impact extends far beyond the rink. Created in honor of Hayden Thorsen, the annual event brings together NHL players, professional athletes and the hockey community to raise awareness for youth mental health and support the Shoulder Check Foundation. Shoulder Check Showcase by Holly Arend As the showcase grows each year, so does its mission to encourage open conversations about mental health, reduce stigma and remind athletes that asking for help is a sign of strength.

Gallery by Amanda LaMonda | July 30 2026 Lakeland Flying Tigers vs Tampa Tarpons by Amanda LaMonda The Tampa Tarpons couldn't recover after falling behind early, losing 9-3 to the Lakeland Flying Tigers on Thursday night at George M. Steinbrenner Field. Lakeland opened the scoring in the first inning and extended its lead with a two-run home run in the fourth. The Flying Tigers broke the game open with three runs in the fifth before adding three more in the seventh to take a 9-0 lead. Lakeland Flying Tigers vs Tampa Tarpons by Amanda LaMonda The Tarpons got on the board in the bottom of the eighth after a Lakeland error allowed two runs to score. Bryce Martin-Grudzielanek followed with an RBI double to cut the deficit to 9-3, but Tampa could not mount a comeback. These photos are owned by Hazze Media and Minor League Baseball (MiLB). They may not be redistributed, sold, or used for commercial purposes without explicit permission.

Gallery by Amanda LaMonda | July 28 2026 The Tampa Tarpons take the win 10-7, with a total of 4 home runs. Tarpons opened the 1st inning with a “home run derby,” according to fans who were enjoying Dog in the Park Night with their furry friends. #10 Hans Montero had 2 home runs and was named top performer of the night, along with Wilberson De Pena, who hit a home run off a 1st pitch, and Brando Mayea, who tallied 1 HR as well. The teams, pups, families, and local kids brought great energy, and they enjoyed their final days of summer night baseball before school is back in Florida. These photos are owned by Hazze Media and Minor League Baseball (MiLB). They may not be redistributed, sold, or used for commercial purposes without explicit permission.

By Ava Heaton | July 24 2026 Boston Fleet’s Haley Winn (8) celebrates a goal on Ottawa Charge goaltender Gwyneth Philips (33), not pictured, during shootout PWHL hockey action in Ottawa, on Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby When the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) began, it did more than just establish a professional platform for women’s ice hockey. It emphasized collegiate programs that would have otherwise gone unnoticed. At the top of this list is ECAC Hockey. Formed by a blend of prestigious Ivy League schools and other powerhouse programs, the ECAC has cemented itself as arguably the most dominant development ground for professional women’s hockey. A transition from collegiate hockey to the PWHL is a demanding one, but year after year, ECAC programs prove that they are uniquely equipped to produce athletes who don’t just make professional rosters, but immediately make their impact felt. To understand how deeply the ECAC is woven into the fabric of the PWHL already, you don’t have to look far. The league’s opening night rosters for the 2025-26 season featured 75 former ECAC Hockey student-athletes, with representation from 11 of the league’s 12 schools. The sheer number of ECAC alumni scattered across the league speaks to the conference’s dominance. ECAC programs have built sustained cultures of success and professional readiness. The seamless transition from the ECAC to the professional level is not just a coincidence. It’s rooted in the specific brand of hockey played in the conference. Historically, ECAC Hockey has been defined by its defensive structure, disciplined systems, and physical style. While other collegiate conferences may be known for high-flying, transition offenses, the ECAC is a league of inches. Games are won along the boards, in the netfront closeness, and through neutral-zone pressure. Victoire wins 2026 PWHL Walter Cup © Troy Parla/Getty Images Because the PWHL has quickly established a reputation as an incredibly physical and fast league, ECAC alumni find themselves in familiar territory. The heavy forechecking, shot-blocking, and defensive accountability drilled into them by their collegiate coaches help them transition seamlessly into the pro game. Players who spent four years matching up against the disciplined systems of Cornell, Yale, or Clarkson don’t experience the same culture shock when facing the stifling defense of a professional team. They are already accustomed to playing under pressure, making quick decisions in tight spaces, and sacrificing their bodies to protect a lead. This preparation has allowed numerous ECAC alumni to fast-track their way to stardom in the PWHL. Take Boston Fleet forward Jessie Eldridge, a former Colgate University standout. Known in college for her relentless work ethic and offensive instincts, Eldridge smoothly translated her game to the professional level, becoming a highly dependable offensive presence. Her ability to play a heavy, physical game while maintaining soft hands around the crease is a direct byproduct of the style she perfected in the ECAC. Another Fleet standout and former Clarkson University star Haley Winn has even said that playing in the conference with its physicality and pace of play really prepared her for the PWHL and she was even drafted second overall in the 2025 draft. The Quinnipiac Bobcats Are Your 2026 ECAC Hockey Women's Champions The impact of ECAC Hockey doesn’t show signs of stopping any time soon. In the 2026 PWHL Draft out of 72 players selected, 27 of them came from the ECAC. That ranked the most out of any NCAA Conference. So, as the PWHL continues to grow, securing its place in the mainstream sports landscape, the strong, mutually beneficial relationship between the league and ECAC Hockey will only continue. Young recruits will continue to choose ECAC schools because they see alumni successfully leaping to the pros. For collegiate players dreaming of going professional, the ECAC has proven to be a great path. The conference has shown it can build the foundation required to succeed at the absolute highest level of the sport. When fans tune in to watch the fastest, most physical women's ice hockey on the planet, they are watching a product heavily shaped, driven, and elevated by the alumni of ECAC Hockey. Disclaimer: The views, analysis, and opinions expressed in this op-ed are of the writer. All information is for commentary and informational purposes only and is not intended as legal, professional, or investment advice. References to third-party sources and public figures are made for illustrative purposes and do not imply endorsement or verification by HAZZE MEDIA.

Interview by Holly Arend | July 23 2026 On a bus ride home after a bad day at school, a kid sat alone at the front, with no one beside him. Hayden Thorsen noticed. He put a hand on his shoulder, asked if he was okay and invited him to come sit with him. It was a small gesture, quiet and instinctive, the kind of thing that might have passed in a moment and still stayed with someone for years. In many ways, it became the kind of moment Shoulder Check was built to honor. Reach out, check in, make contact. Those words eventually became the heartbeat of Shoulder Check, but they started somewhere more personal. They started in the way Hayden moved through the world, in the way he noticed people, in the way he made them feel less alone. After Hayden passed by suicide at 16, what remained for his family was not only grief, but the memory of how naturally he cared for others. What began in loss slowly became something lasting, not a slogan, but a way of carrying his impact forward. For Rob Thorsen, Hayden’s father, that work was never only about remembering what was lost. It was about building something people could actually live with, something simple enough to carry into everyday life and meaningful enough to matter when it did. That is why the language at the center of Shoulder Check matters so much. Reach out, check in, make contact is not just a message attached to the organization. It reflects the way Hayden lived. “He was the kind of person who walked into a room and made people feel like they mattered,” Thorsen said. That line says almost everything. Hayden had a presence people noticed right away. He was big, funny, sharp, athletic and full of personality. But the quality people return to most often is not just that he stood out. It is that he made other people feel seen. “He’s the warmest, kindest person on the planet,” Thorsen said. “Maybe they weren’t the best player on the team, but Hayden always made them feel like they were.” That memory lives at the center of Shoulder Check. Not just the sadness of what happened, but the truth of who Hayden was. From the beginning, the goal was never to create a traditional mental health campaign. Thorsen wanted something people could use, not just admire. Something direct. Something human. Something that could meet people where they already were. “We wanted it to be simple, universal and something people could take with them,” he said. That thinking shaped the organization’s language and its identity. Reach out, check in and make contact was designed to feel approachable, while the larger idea of making kindness a contact sport gave the message a natural connection to hockey without trapping it there. “It has to be a doing thing,” Thorsen said. “It’s not enough to talk about it. You have to do it.” That idea, action instead of just awareness, became the foundation. Shoulder Check did not come to life in isolation. It grew through family, friends and the larger hockey community, all of them trying to turn grief into something that could help other people. Gary Zegras was one of the people who immediately reached out and made it clear he wanted to be involved. Ben and Ashley Prentiss at Prentiss Hockey Performance, where Hayden had trained, also became important early partners. Their facility, lined with jerseys from the athletes who trained there, became its own kind of tribute. The first jersey hanging in that space carried Hayden’s name. From there, the vision started to sharpen. Prentiss and his team wanted to do something tangible and suggested a game. That idea helped crystallize what Shoulder Check could be. The game became the launch point for the Shoulder Check Initiative. The inaugural event carried the emotion of people who were still very close to the loss. Much of the crowd was, as Thorsen described it, only about one degree away from everything. It was public, emotional and deeply communal. Hayden’s teammates helped run the event and skated in the amateur game, grounding it in the people and relationships that had shaped his life. Even in its earliest form, Shoulder Check felt less like a campaign rollout and more like a shared act of care. From there, the idea kept growing. What began as a local expression of grief and remembrance started to evolve into something larger and more portable. The core message stayed the same, but more people began to see themselves in it and bring their own energy to it. By October 2025, Shoulder Check had already grown into a yearlong effort. Activations stretched across the NHL, the AHL, youth hockey, schools and community spaces. The initiative was no longer confined to a single event or a single room. It had become something people were carrying into their own teams, campuses and communities. That growth also showed up creatively. One of the clearest examples was Lean on Me, a project that brought athletes together in a way that emphasized vulnerability, trust and connection. It worked because it felt real. It did not just tell people what Shoulder Check stood for. It showed them. The same was true as the organization moved into the next phase of its work in 2026. The calendar expanded. The activations spread. The message reached different corners of the hockey world and beyond. There were events tied to Shattered Ice, including screenings at McGill University and with support connected to the Capitals. Other programs reached out wanting to screen the film for their students and team members. What mattered was not just that the message was growing, but that it was finding different forms. That expansion was never really about scale for its own sake. It was about finding more ways to make the message usable. Even as new campaigns developed and partnerships expanded, the heart of the work stayed the same. The goal was to keep Hayden’s spirit alive through action, to build a culture where kindness is practiced, not just praised. That is part of what makes Shoulder Check feel different. It does not ask people only to agree with the message. It asks them to do something with it. The annual showcase became the clearest expression of that idea, but it also became part of a larger rhythm. The event was no longer just a single summer gathering. It was the center of a bigger cycle, one that continued through schools, teams, community events and creative projects throughout the year. The move to Sacred Heart marked the next chapter in that growth. The larger venue offered more space, more resources and more ways for people to engage, while still trying to preserve what had made the earlier years special. The hope was not to outgrow the intimacy of the event, but to give it a setting that could hold everything it had become. “It should still be everything that made it special,” Thorsen said, “just with a better setting to host it in, with more resources.” As planning continued, that next phase came further into focus. Ticket sales launched earlier than in previous years. Partners from earlier events returned. New ones began joining the effort. One of those partners was Be The People, whose values aligned closely with the spirit of Shoulder Check and the people behind it. That mattered because the partnership was not just sponsorship. It was recognition. Be The People saw in Shoulder Check the same call to action they believe in: that communities change when people choose to step up, show up and be part of something bigger than themselves. There was also hope for the Hockey Hall of Fame to bring trophies to the event, and the possibility of broader broadcast visibility changed what the day could become. But what seemed to excite Thorsen most was not the scale of the production. It was the opportunity to create more touch points for the message itself. He described an experience where the event would not just contain Shoulder Check, but express it constantly. Stories on the jumbotron. Reflections from students who had helped bring the idea to life. Messages from families explaining why they check in. Moments woven into the rhythm of the day rather than forced into it. That distinction matters. The most moving parts of Shoulder Check have rarely felt manufactured. They work because they feel lived in. They come from real people, real stories and real acts of connection. “There’ll be a band, there’ll be more and different food, there’ll be additional partners in our midway, there’ll be new things to see, like the Hall of Fame trophies, and of course, the players’ arrivals,” Thorsen said. There is joy in that description, and that joy matters too. Shoulder Check has always carried grief inside it, but it has never been built only around grief. It is also built around warmth, humor, togetherness and the belief that kindness can still be active, visible and shared. That may be one of the clearest ways Hayden’s presence remains inside it. The whole story matters, of course. The family knows that. The people close to the organization know that. But one of the most powerful things about Shoulder Check is that carrying the idea forward does not always require knowing every detail of where it began. Sometimes it starts much smaller than that. A hand on a shoulder. A question. An invitation to sit down beside someone. That is the kind of memory this work keeps returning to. Not because it is sentimental, but because it is instructive. It reminds people that connection does not always have to be grand to be meaningful. Sometimes the smallest gestures leave the deepest mark. That is what Shoulder Check was built to hold onto. Not only the pain of losing Hayden, but the example of how he lived. Not just awareness. Not just remembrance. Action. Care. Presence. The choice to notice someone else and move toward them. That is why the phrase still holds. Reach out, check in, make contact. It is a mission statement, but it is also more than that. It is a reflection of Hayden’s life. It is the shape his impact took after loss. It is the way his family, friends and community chose not to let kindness stop with memory. And in that way, Shoulder Check is not only about honoring Hayden. It is about making more room in the world for what he gave people when he was here. A sense of being seen. A sense of being valued. A reminder that someone noticed. Not just to remember Hayden. But to keep making room for people to reach out, check in and make contact.