The Wednesday edition of NYT Connections Sports Edition arrives with puzzle #674, serving up a grid that spans card-table sequencing, city-specific team knowledge, broad sports vocabulary, and a sharp bit of wordplay.
What Makes Connections Sports Edition Tick
For newcomers, NYT Connections Sports Edition presents 16 sports-themed words that must be sorted into four thematic groups of four. The twist? You're limited to four mistakes, and the color-coded difficulty system (yellow being easiest, purple being trickiest) means surface-level connections often mislead.
Connections Sports Edition brings the same addictive puzzle format to the world of athletics, featuring athletes, teams, sports terminology, and legendary moments. The game's genius lies in its red herrings, words that could fit multiple sports categories but belong in only one.
Today's Grid at a Glance
Here are the 16 words staring back at you in puzzle #674:
ROCKY | RIVER | RAPIDS | TURN
FIXTURE | SHOWDOWN | ALOUETTES | POPOVICH
COUNTRY CLUB | MATCH | VICTOIRE | FLOP
CANADIENS | COMPETITION | CF MONTRÉAL | GAME
A seemingly random collection that somehow connects into four perfect categories.
Strategic Hints (No Spoilers Yet)
Yellow Category Nudge: Think broadly about words that can describe an organized test between opponents.
Green Category Clue: Put the action at a card table and consider the sequence in which shared cards and the final comparison appear.
Blue Category Hint: Focus on one Canadian city and cast a wide net across its professional sports landscape.
Purple Category Teaser: Read the beginnings closely. Each entry opens with a recognizable style of music.
The Full Solutions
Last chance to solve independently: answers below
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Yellow (Contest): COMPETITION, FIXTURE, GAME, MATCH
FIXTURE, MATCH, GAME, and COMPETITION can each name a CONTEST.
SHOWDOWN is the convincing red herring because it can also describe a decisive contest, but its card-table role places it elsewhere.
Green (Stages In A Texas Hold'em Hand): FLOP, RIVER, SHOWDOWN, TURN
FLOP, TURN, RIVER, and SHOWDOWN are STAGES IN A TEXAS HOLD'EM HAND, progressing from the first three community cards through the fourth and fifth cards to the final comparison.
RIVER also pulls toward RAPIDS and ROCKY as scenic language, while SHOWDOWN presses against the contest synonyms.
Blue (Pro Teams In Montreal): ALOUETTES, CANADIENS, CF MONTRÉAL, VICTOIRE
CANADIENS, ALOUETTES, VICTOIRE, and CF MONTRÉAL are PRO TEAMS IN MONTREAL.
The set crosses hockey, Canadian football, women's hockey, and soccer, so recognizing the shared city matters more than looking for a single league.
Purple (Starts With A Music Genre): COUNTRY CLUB, POPOVICH, RAPIDS, ROCKY
RAPIDS, ROCKY, POPOVICH, and COUNTRY CLUB each START WITH A MUSIC GENRE: RAP, ROCK, POP, and COUNTRY.
The trick depends on opening fragments rather than the meanings of the complete entries, which is why the set snaps into place once RAPIDS is read as RAP plus the remaining letters.
The Verdict
The contest synonyms should fall first, although SHOWDOWN creates a credible fifth candidate beside FIXTURE, MATCH, GAME, and COMPETITION.
The real trap runs through RIVER, RAPIDS, and ROCKY, whose landscape associations can distract from both the hold'em sequence and the opening-fragment trick.
The Montreal group is the streak decider because it demands recognition across four different professional sports identities, while the purple construction becomes mechanically clear after its first genre fragment lands.
Reset and Repeat
The cleanest flourish today is the RAP, ROCK, POP, and COUNTRY opening trick, a satisfying reminder to inspect a word's construction when its surface meaning keeps pulling the grid off course. Reset tomorrow and come back ready to read every entry from both ends.
For now, puzzle #674 is solved. See you at midnight for the next round.
