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TORONTO — Sarah Nurse was driving house from a current PWHL Toronto apply when she acquired a little bit of sage recommendation.
It wasn’t from a podcast or a pal on the cellphone. The recommendation got here courtesy of a billboard on the facet of the street 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 certainly 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 prior 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 — during which she broke a report for factors in a single match (18) — Nurse has change into one of many greatest faces in girls’s hockey.
She turned the primary lady to look 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 girls’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 crew 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 girls and gamers of colour, she is in uncharted territory.
Her ascension has been years within the making — all a part of a fastidiously crafted marketing strategy developed by Nurse and her crew at Dulcedo Administration, a expertise company, to make Nurse not simply one of many faces of the sport, however somebody with the form of celeb 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.”
Sarah Nurse holds the Barbie dolls impressed by herself and Marie-Philip Poulin in 2020. (Courtesy of Tim Hortons)
When Nurse signed with Dulcedo in 2019, her fame as a participant was already sturdy.
At 24 years previous, Nurse had already been a star on the College of Wisconsin, received 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 typically mentioned as one of many latest branches of a formidable 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 attraction, a number of brokers got here calling.
However after the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics, Nurse, who graduated with a enterprise diploma, was trying to discover her pursuits in style and wonder — fields which are usually outdoors the areas of experience for conventional sports activities companies. Nurse, nevertheless, wasn’t taking part in in a typical sports activities panorama.
Within the CWHL, gamers have been paid solely small stipends — Nurse stated she made $2,000 as a rookie within the league — which meant taking part in girls’s skilled hockey was not a predominant supply of revenue.
Dulcedo, which launched as a modeling company however has since expanded into different industries, together with sports activities, might give Nurse extra alternatives to department out.
“She didn’t simply wish to be often known as Sarah Nurse, the hockey participant,” defined Houlton. “And never simply as a chunk 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 carried out something like that earlier than as a result of I’m a hockey participant — no person offers me pretend eyelashes or places lipstick on me. I used to be like, this might be the beginning of one thing nice, as a result of I felt like they acquired me.”
Houlton signed Nurse to blue-chip sports activities companions like CCM and Adidas but additionally labored on increase 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 wherever,” 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 course of a interval of upheaval in girls’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 girls’s world championships have been canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The stakes have been excessive within the 12 months 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 earn a living — and a reputation for themselves. A knee damage throughout tryouts put into query whether or not Nurse can 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 secure 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 crew.”
To the teaching workers, regardless of the actual fact she couldn’t skate within the months main as much as the match, Nurse had greater than confirmed her price to the Canadian nationwide crew.
“We knew that she was going to be a giant 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 workers 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 exhausting to play towards, you’ll be able to belief her in powerful matchups,” stated Ambrose. “For thus lengthy with the nationwide crew, that was her m.o. No matter you wanted, she was there.”
Nurse made the crew and was wholesome in time for the beginning of the match. She additionally secured Olympic campaigns with Common Mills, Sportchek, RBC and extra.
Crew Canada rewrote the report 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 report with 18 factors in six video games. She set a report 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 section of her life.”
Sarah Nurse attends a postgame convention after the PWHL three-on-three showcase at Scotiabank Enviornment throughout NHL All-Star Weekend. (Kevin Sousa / NHLI through Getty Pictures)
Ninety minutes earlier than the NHL All-Star red-carpet occasion, Nurse was in a lodge room in downtown Toronto doing her hair, getting her make-up carried out and taking pictures content material for her social media channels — nothing she wasn’t used to.
Her All-Star weekend obligations had began days earlier than, with media and promotional appearances. Earlier that morning, she was on the ice for an out of doors apply with the PWHL gamers chosen to signify the brand-new league on the NHL’s tentpole occasion. She then made a shock go to to a ladies hockey crew with teammates Renata Quick, Natalie Spooner and Adidas.
After leaving the lodge, she’d stroll the crimson carpet, shock one other ladies hockey crew — this time with Canadian Tire and Poulin — and, 12 hours after her day began, play within the PWHL three-on-three showcase at Scotiabank Enviornment. That a part of her schedule doesn’t embody the NHL abilities competitors, which Nurse was on the ice for on Friday night time, or the regular-season PWHL recreation she performed on Saturday.
“That entire week was a blur,” Nurse stated.
“I don’t even know if we have been anticipating what occurred there by way of, like, you’ll be able to’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.”
All the things about Nurse’s NHL All-Star weekend suggests the plan has labored. Within the final 12 months, Nurse has gotten so busy that Dulcedo added Phoebe Balshin to the crew 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, a giant 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 Milan (the 2026 Olympics.)”
To refine the method, Nurse recognized 4 particular intersections of her personal pursuits and development alternatives: hockey, style and wonder, entrepreneurship and group. A possible partnership should transfer the needle in no less than a type 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 just lately, Dyson. She’s additionally signed different paid partnerships with magnificence manufacturers comparable to Dove, L’Oréal and Revlon.
Manufacturers focused Nurse after her Olympic efficiency, however that’s only one a part of the whole bundle. She’s outgoing with an affable appeal, an infectious giggle and an ease on digicam.
“It comes all the way down to character, and Sarah may be very a lot one-of-one,” Houlton stated. “Sarah can present up on set straight away from bed and look wonderful, sound wonderful, and provides the model the very best efficiency they’ve ever seen.”
Nurse is a biracial Black lady and is vocal in her help of elevated illustration in a predominantly White sport. Her crew 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 in order that they examine their variety field,” Houlton defined.
They’ve additionally labored with companions that Nurse already had in her portfolio to make sure that her objectives are being met — not simply the model’s personal goals.
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 girls’s hockey participant. Her Adidas marketing campaign has her aligned with large names outdoors of the game, comparable to Mahomes and Messi. “Our aim is to get her neck and neck with the very best,” Balshin defined.
Auston Matthews, Sarah Nurse, and Marie-Philip Poulin answered hard-hitting questions from youngsters at an RBC press convention 😂
(through @RBC) pic.twitter.com/7T7k7bT8QV
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) February 5, 2024
Final week, Nurse launched “Nursey Evening,” during 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 concept began as a manner for Nurse to offer away her brother’s season tickets each every so often but it surely ended up with a $50,000 donation from Rogers and a partnership with Black Woman 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 form of how we snowball issues over right here.”
On high 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. All the things will get put right into a content material calendar that Balshin manages, and each morning she sends Nurse a textual content outlining “all the pieces we now have to fret about as we speak.”
“She has made our lives lots happier,” Nurse stated. “We acquired to a degree the place there was simply an excessive amount of occurring and we couldn’t facilitate all the pieces.”
With all the pieces happening off the ice, it’s straightforward to overlook that Nurse is certainly one of Canada’s greatest hockey gamers and a face of the PWHL in Toronto. She’s additionally the vice chairman of the PWHL Gamers Affiliation and is on the Hockey Canada participant committee.
Sarah Nurse skates towards PWHL Montreal’s Mariah Keopple at Scotiabank Enviornment. (Mark Blinch / Getty Pictures)
“I’d 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 in truth don’t understand how she does it however I really like her for it.”
Nurse is aware of it appears like there’s lots on her plate however insists she’s superb at compartmentalizing. Ryan, additionally her coach with PWHL Toronto, says Nurse’s different obligations have “by no means negatively impacted who she is as a participant.”
“I feel she’s discovered methods to really use it to ensure she nonetheless has an influence within the recreation,” he stated. “She’s below a highlight and below a microscope a lot. I feel that sense of pleasure she most likely will get with that has most likely compelled 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 objectives on Tuesday night time, together with the sport winner towards Minnesota.
Gone are the times of gamers comparable to Nurse making solely $2,000 a season to play hockey. Within the PWHL, the minimal wage $35,000, with some high gamers making as a lot as $100,000. Nonetheless, even the league’s greatest gamers aren’t getting wealthy taking part in girls’s skilled hockey.
“The advertising does imply lots to them and is a predominant supply of revenue,” Balshin stated.
The work that Nurse is placing in can also be laying the monitor for all times after hockey, each time that comes. It might 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 undoubtedly have aspirations to develop and develop into totally different sectors,” she stated.
“We wish her to be a face of hockey, interval, not simply girls’s hockey. And of inclusion in sport,” Balshin stated. “She needs to point out younger ladies that they are often so many issues.”
(Illustration: Daniel Goldfarb / The Athletic. Images: Mark Blinch / Getty Pictures, Nicole Osborne / NHLI through Getty Pictures)
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