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TORONTO — Sarah Nurse was driving residence from a current PWHL Toronto observe when she received a little bit of sage recommendation.
It wasn’t from a podcast or a buddy on the telephone. The recommendation got here courtesy of a billboard on the facet of the highway in Canada’s most populous metropolis, that includes her personal face with the Adidas slogan “You bought this.”
“I used to be like, yeah, I do,” Nurse stated with amusing.
The billboard she drove previous is considered one of many throughout the nation, together with an enormous commercial at Yonge-Dundas Sq. — Toronto’s closest approximation to Occasions Sq. in New York Metropolis — that pairs Nurse with Tremendous Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes and World Cup champion Lionel Messi.
Nurse, 29, has had main partnerships up to now. In 2020, Tim Hortons and Mattel collaborated to make a Barbie doll in her likeness. In 2022, she was featured on a Cheerios field. However within the two years since her breakout efficiency on the Beijing Olympics — through which she broke a file for factors in a single match (18) — Nurse has change into one of many greatest faces in ladies’s hockey.
She turned the primary lady to seem on the duvet of an EA Sports activities hockey online game with NHL 23. She was a key determine within the launch of the Skilled Ladies’s Hockey League as a member of the player-led bargaining committee that struck a first-of-its-kind CBA in ladies’s skilled hockey. This month, she starred in a Canadian Tremendous Bowl industrial and was one of many busiest athletes throughout NHL All-Star Weekend, showing at a number of league and accomplice occasions.
“All over the place you flip, it’s like, there’s Sarah,” stated Canadian nationwide staff defender Erin Ambrose.
Nurse’s eight main endorsement offers put her forward of nearly each different skilled hockey participant, outdoors of a handful of NHL stars. Amongst ladies and gamers of colour, she is in uncharted territory.
Her ascension has been years within the making — all a part of a rigorously crafted marketing strategy developed by Nurse and her staff at Dulcedo Administration, a expertise company, to make Nurse not simply one of many faces of the sport, however somebody with the type of superstar that transcends her sport.
“You don’t must observe basketball to know who LeBron James is,” stated her agent, Thomas Houlton. “That’s what we wish to do for Sarah.”
When Nurse signed with Dulcedo in 2019, her popularity as a participant was already sturdy.
At 24 years previous, Nurse had already been a star on the College of Wisconsin, gained an Olympic silver medal and been drafted with the No. 2 choose within the now-defunct Canadian Ladies’s Hockey League. In these early days, Nurse was usually mentioned as one of many latest branches of a powerful athletic household tree.
Her father, Roger, was an elite lacrosse participant. Her aunt, Raquel, was a celebrated level guard at Syracuse College who married Philadelphia Eagles legend Donovan McNabb. Her cousins embody Kia Nurse, a two-time Olympian and WNBA all-star, and Darnell Nurse, a defenseman for the Edmonton Oilers.
With Nurse’s multifaceted enchantment, a number of brokers got here calling.
However after the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics, Nurse, who graduated with a enterprise diploma, was seeking to discover her pursuits in vogue and wonder — fields which might be usually outdoors the areas of experience for conventional sports activities businesses. Nurse, nonetheless, wasn’t enjoying in a typical sports activities panorama.
Within the CWHL, gamers had been paid solely small stipends — Nurse stated she made $2,000 as a rookie within the league — which meant enjoying ladies’s skilled hockey was not a most important supply of revenue.
Dulcedo, which launched as a modeling company however has since expanded into different industries, together with sports activities, may give Nurse extra alternatives to department out.
“She didn’t simply wish to be generally known as Sarah Nurse, the hockey participant,” defined Houlton. “And never simply as a bit of the (household tree). … It’s been clear from the start that she actually wished to have her personal legacy.”
“After I first signed with them,” Nurse stated, “I did this glamor photoshoot, and I’d by no means completed something like that earlier than as a result of I’m a hockey participant — no person provides me pretend eyelashes or places lipstick on me. I used to be like, this may very well be the beginning of one thing nice, as a result of I felt like they received me.”
Houlton signed Nurse to blue-chip sports activities companions like CCM and Adidas but in addition labored on build up her social-media profile to place her in areas outdoors of hockey. “No skincare model goes to wish to work with you if we don’t see skincare anyplace,” he defined.
On the ice, Nurse was in one other Olympic cycle with Crew Canada main as much as the 2022 Video games in Beijing and in the midst of a interval of upheaval in ladies’s skilled hockey. The CWHL folded in March 2019, and many of the gamers banded collectively to take a seat out {of professional} hockey till a greater league was shaped. Then the 2020 ladies’s world championships had been canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The stakes had been excessive within the yr main as much as the Olympics. For athletes with out big-ticket skilled contracts, the once-every-four-year window the Video games present is a important second to generate income — and a reputation for themselves. A knee damage throughout tryouts put into query whether or not Nurse could be wholesome sufficient to play.
“I got here out of the world championships in Calgary and I used to be on the fourth line — that’s not a protected place to be. Then I blew up my knee,” Nurse stated. “So I’m going into Olympic tryouts and I’m like, I don’t know if I could make this staff.”
To the teaching employees, regardless of the actual fact she couldn’t skate within the months main as much as the match, Nurse had greater than confirmed her value to the Canadian nationwide staff.
“We knew that she was going to be an enormous a part of our program if she was wholesome sufficient to go,” stated Canada’s head coach, Troy Ryan. “The mix of her work ethic and the medical employees did an excellent job getting her again.”
“What I really like about Sarah, as a teammate and as a hockey participant, is that she does the little issues proper. She’s versatile within the sense that she will be able to play heart and play wing. She will be able to win attracts, she’s onerous to play towards, you may belief her in powerful matchups,” stated Ambrose. “For therefore lengthy with the nationwide staff, that was her m.o. No matter you wanted, she was there.”
Nurse made the staff and was wholesome in time for the beginning of the match. She additionally secured Olympic campaigns with Basic Mills, Sportchek, RBC and extra.
Crew Canada rewrote the file books in Beijing, going undefeated within the match to win a gold medal. Nurse, who began the match on the fourth line, labored her manner as much as the highest line with Marie-Philip Poulin and Brianne Jenner, and broke Hayley Wickenheiser’s Olympic scoring file with 18 factors in six video games. She set a file for assists in a single match (13) and have become the primary Black lady to win an Olympic gold medal in hockey.
“That was actually the catalyst for her to take that subsequent step,” stated Houlton. “And actually propelled us into what was the subsequent part of her life.”
Ninety minutes earlier than the NHL All-Star red-carpet occasion, Nurse was in a resort room in downtown Toronto doing her hair, getting her make-up completed and taking pictures content material for her social media channels — nothing she wasn’t used to.
Her All-Star weekend duties had began days earlier than, with media and promotional appearances. Earlier that morning, she was on the ice for an out of doors observe with the PWHL gamers chosen to symbolize the brand-new league on the NHL’s tentpole occasion. She then made a shock go to to a ladies hockey staff with teammates Renata Quick, Natalie Spooner and Adidas.
After leaving the resort, she’d stroll the crimson carpet, shock one other ladies hockey staff — this time with Canadian Tire and Poulin — and, 12 hours after her day began, play within the PWHL three-on-three showcase at Scotiabank Area. That a part of her schedule doesn’t embody the NHL abilities competitors, which Nurse was on the ice for on Friday evening, or the regular-season PWHL recreation she performed on Saturday.
“That complete week was a blur,” Nurse stated.
“I don’t even know if we had been anticipating what occurred there by way of, like, you may’t even stroll a few steps with out somebody stopping and saying, ‘That’s Sarah Nurse, can I get an image?’” Houlton stated. “It was wonderful to see how far she’s come.”
Every part about Nurse’s NHL All-Star weekend suggests the plan has labored. Within the final yr, Nurse has gotten so busy that Dulcedo added Phoebe Balshin to the staff as a senior athlete supervisor in January 2023. Her job was to create a extra strategic plan for Nurse’s model and assist her take the subsequent step.
“After I first got here on, an enormous dialog was: Sarah works with so many manufacturers, however what’s her model? Who’s she? What’s her mission and imaginative and prescient?” Balshin stated. “So we principally constructed out a five-year plan along with her to take us by way of Milan (the 2026 Olympics.)”
To refine the method, Nurse recognized 4 particular intersections of her personal pursuits and progress alternatives: hockey, vogue and wonder, entrepreneurship and neighborhood. A possible partnership should transfer the needle in at the least a kind of classes.
“If one thing doesn’t align with me, we’re not going to do it,” Nurse stated.
Nurse now has eight main sponsors: Adidas, CCM, RBC, Canadian Tire, Tim Hortons, EA Sports activities, Chevrolet and, most lately, Dyson. She’s additionally signed different paid partnerships with magnificence manufacturers similar to Dove, L’Oréal and Revlon.
Manufacturers focused Nurse after her Olympic efficiency, however that’s only one a part of the entire package deal. She’s outgoing with an affable appeal, an infectious snigger and an ease on digital camera.
“It comes all the way down to persona, and Sarah could be very a lot one-of-one,” Houlton stated. “Sarah can present up on set straight off the bed and look wonderful, sound wonderful, and provides the model one of the best efficiency they’ve ever seen.”
Nurse is a biracial Black lady and is vocal in her assist of elevated illustration in a predominantly White sport. Her staff is cautious in regards to the intentions of potential sponsors. “I must ask all the suitable inquiries to make it possible for this model is not only utilizing her so that they verify their variety field,” Houlton defined.
They’ve additionally labored with companions that Nurse already had in her portfolio to make sure that her targets are being met — not simply the model’s personal targets.
Throughout All-Star weekend, Nurse did a shoot with RBC that included Poulin and Toronto Maple Leafs star Auston Matthews, which oriented Nurse as knowledgeable athlete — not simply as a ladies’s hockey participant. Her Adidas marketing campaign has her aligned with huge names outdoors of the game, similar to Mahomes and Messi. “Our purpose is to get her neck and neck with one of the best,” Balshin defined.
Auston Matthews, Sarah Nurse, and Marie-Philip Poulin answered hard-hitting questions from youngsters at an RBC press convention 😂
(by way of @RBC) pic.twitter.com/7T7k7bT8QV
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) February 5, 2024
Final week, Nurse launched “Nursey Evening,” through which she is going to host younger Black ladies at PWHL Toronto video games, meet with them postgame and mentor them all year long. The thought began as a manner for Nurse to present away her brother’s season tickets each every now and then however it ended up with a $50,000 donation from Rogers and a partnership with Black Lady Hockey Membership, a non-profit group targeted on making hockey extra inclusive.
“Individuals wish to be concerned in something she does,” Balshin stated. “That’s type of how we snowball issues over right here.”
On prime of promotional appearances and occasions, Nurse posts paid promotions on social media and has gotten extra energetic on TikTok, posting movies whereas doing her make-up or skincare, or offering motivation to younger women and girls who go to her channels. Every part will get put right into a content material calendar that Balshin manages, and each morning she sends Nurse a textual content outlining “every part we have now to fret about at present.”
“She has made our lives quite a bit happier,” Nurse stated. “We received to a degree the place there was simply an excessive amount of occurring and we couldn’t facilitate every part.”
With every part happening off the ice, it’s straightforward to overlook that Nurse is considered one of Canada’s greatest hockey gamers and a face of the PWHL in Toronto. She’s additionally the vp of the PWHL Gamers Affiliation and is on the Hockey Canada participant committee.
“I might love to take a seat down and see her calendar,” Ambrose stated. “I’m in awe of what she does away from the rink. I’m in awe of what she does on the rink. I honestly don’t know the way she does it however I really like her for it.”
Nurse is aware of it feels like there’s quite a bit on her plate however insists she’s superb at compartmentalizing. Ryan, additionally her coach with PWHL Toronto, says Nurse’s different duties have “by no means negatively impacted who she is as a participant.”
“I feel she’s discovered methods to truly use it to verify she nonetheless has an impression within the recreation,” he stated. “She’s beneath a highlight and beneath a microscope a lot. I feel that sense of pleasure she in all probability will get with that has in all probability pressured her to do the additional work.”
“I’m very aware of the truth that for me to do all of this different stuff, I must carry out my greatest on the ice,” added Nurse, who scored two targets on Tuesday evening, together with the sport winner towards Minnesota.
Gone are the times of gamers similar to Nurse making solely $2,000 a season to play hockey. Within the PWHL, the minimal wage $35,000, with some prime gamers making as a lot as $100,000. Nonetheless, even the league’s greatest gamers aren’t getting wealthy enjoying ladies’s skilled hockey.
“The advertising and marketing does imply quite a bit to them and is a most important supply of revenue,” Balshin stated.
The work that Nurse is placing in can also be laying the monitor for all times after hockey, at any time when that comes. It could take one thing unexpected for Nurse to not be on the 2026 Olympics.
Nurse has thought of pursuing a number of paths, from actual property funding to launching a clothes line or a manufacturing firm. “I positively have aspirations to broaden and develop into completely different sectors,” she stated.
“We would like her to be a face of hockey, interval, not simply ladies’s hockey. And of inclusion in sport,” Balshin stated. “She desires to indicate younger ladies that they are often so many issues.”
(Illustration: Daniel Goldfarb / The Athletic. Images: Mark Blinch / Getty Photos, Nicole Osborne / NHLI by way of Getty Photos)
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