The enterprise of Sarah Nurse: She’s one of many faces of hockey, however her sights are set on extra

TORONTO — Sarah Nurse was driving house from a current PWHL Toronto observe when she obtained a little bit of sage recommendation.

It wasn’t from a podcast or a good friend on the telephone. 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 got this.”

“I was like, yeah, I do,” Nurse mentioned with fun.

The billboard she drove previous is one in every of many throughout the nation, together with a large commercial at Yonge-Dundas Square — Toronto’s closest approximation to Times Square in New York City — that pairs Nurse with Super 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. But within the two years since her breakout efficiency on the Beijing Olympics — wherein she broke a file for factors in a single match (18) — Nurse has change into one of many largest faces in ladies’s hockey.

She grew to become the primary girl to seem on the quilt of an EA Sports hockey online game with NHL 23. She was a key determine within the launch of the Professional Women’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 Super Bowl business and was one of many busiest athletes throughout NHL All-Star Weekend, showing at a number of league and companion occasions.

“Everywhere you turn, it’s like, there’s Sarah,” mentioned 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. Among ladies and gamers of coloration, 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 staff at Dulcedo Management, a expertise company, to make Nurse not simply one of many faces of the sport, however somebody with the form of movie star that transcends her sport.

“You don’t need to follow basketball to know who LeBron James is,” mentioned her agent, Thomas Houlton. “That’s what we want to do for Sarah.”

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When Nurse signed with Dulcedo in 2019, her repute as a participant was already sturdy.

At 24 years outdated, Nurse had already been a star on the University of Wisconsin, gained an Olympic silver medal and been drafted with the No. 2 decide within the now-defunct Canadian Women’s Hockey League. In these early days, Nurse was typically 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 University 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.

But after the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics, Nurse, who graduated with a enterprise diploma, was trying to discover her pursuits in style and wonder — fields which might be usually outdoors the areas of experience for conventional sports activities companies. Nurse, nonetheless, wasn’t taking part in in a typical sports activities panorama.

In the CWHL, gamers had been paid solely small stipends — Nurse mentioned she made $2,000 as a rookie within the league — which meant taking part in ladies’s skilled hockey was not a fundamental 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 just want to be known as Sarah Nurse, the hockey player,” defined Houlton. “And not just as a piece of the (family tree). … It’s been clear from the beginning that she really wanted to have her own legacy.”

“When I first signed with them,” Nurse mentioned, “I did this glamor photoshoot, and I’d never done anything like that before because I’m a hockey player — nobody gives me fake eyelashes or puts lipstick on me. I was like, this could be the start of something great, because I felt like they got me.”

Houlton signed Nurse to blue-chip sports activities companions like CCM and Adidas but in addition labored on increase her social-media profile to place her in areas outdoors of hockey. “No skincare brand is going to want to work with you if we don’t see skincare anywhere,” he defined.

On the ice, Nurse was in one other Olympic cycle with Team Canada main as much as the 2022 Games in Beijing and in the midst of a interval of upheaval in ladies’s skilled hockey. The CWHL folded in March 2019, and a lot of the gamers banded collectively to sit down out {of professional} hockey till a greater league was fashioned. Then the 2020 ladies’s world championships had been canceled as a result of COVID-19 pandemic.

The stakes had 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 Games present is a essential 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 came out of the world championships in Calgary and I was on the fourth line — that’s not a safe place to be. Then I blew up my knee,” Nurse mentioned. “So I’m going into Olympic tryouts and I’m like, I don’t know if I can make this team.”

To the teaching employees, regardless of the very 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 a big part of our program if she was healthy enough to go,” mentioned Canada’s head coach, Troy Ryan. “The combination of her work ethic and the medical staff did a great job getting her back.”

“What I love about Sarah, as a teammate and as a hockey player, is that she does the little things right. She’s versatile in the sense that she can play center and play wing. She can win draws, she’s hard to play against, you can trust her in tough matchups,” mentioned Ambrose. “For so long with the national team, that was her m.o. Whatever you needed, she was there.”

Nurse made the staff and was wholesome in time for the beginning of the match. She additionally secured Olympic campaigns with General Mills, Sportchek, RBC and extra.

Team 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 approach 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 girl to win an Olympic gold medal in hockey.

“That was really the catalyst for her to take that next step,” mentioned Houlton. “And really propelled us into what was the next phase of her life.”

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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 accomplished and capturing 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 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 women hockey staff with teammates Renata Fast, Natalie Spooner and Adidas.

After leaving the resort, she’d stroll the purple carpet, shock one other women 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 Arena. That a part of her schedule doesn’t embody the NHL expertise competitors, which Nurse was on the ice for on Friday evening, or the regular-season PWHL recreation she performed on Saturday.

“That whole week was a blur,” Nurse mentioned.

“I don’t even know if we were anticipating what occurred there in terms of, like, you can’t even walk a couple of steps without someone stopping and saying, ‘That’s Sarah Nurse, can I get a picture?’” Houlton mentioned. “It was amazing to see how far she’s come.”

Everything about Nurse’s NHL All-Star weekend suggests the plan has labored. In the final 12 months, 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 following step.

“When I first came on, a big conversation was: Sarah works with so many brands, but what is her brand? Who is she? What is her mission and vision?” Balshin mentioned. “So we basically built out a five-year plan with her to take us through Milan (the 2026 Olympics.)”

To refine the method, Nurse recognized 4 particular intersections of her personal pursuits and progress alternatives: hockey, style and wonder, entrepreneurship and group. A possible partnership should transfer the needle in at the least a type of classes.

“If something doesn’t align with me, we’re not going to do it,” Nurse mentioned.

Nurse now has eight main sponsors: Adidas, CCM, RBC, Canadian Tire, Tim Hortons, EA Sports, Chevrolet and, most lately, Dyson. She’s additionally signed different paid partnerships with magnificence manufacturers similar to Dove, L’Oréal and Revlon.

Brands focused Nurse after her Olympic efficiency, however that’s only one a part of the whole package deal. She’s outgoing with an affable allure, an infectious snicker and an ease on digital camera.

“It comes down to personality, and Sarah is very much one-of-one,” Houlton mentioned. “Sarah can show up on set straight out of bed and look amazing, sound amazing, and give the brand the best performance they’ve ever seen.”

Nurse is a biracial Black girl 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 need to ask all the right questions to make sure that this brand is not just using her so they check their diversity box,” 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.

During 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 massive names outdoors of the game, similar to Mahomes and Messi. “Our goal is to get her neck and neck with 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

Last week, Nurse launched “Nursey Night,” wherein she’s going to host younger Black women at PWHL Toronto video games, meet with them postgame and mentor them all year long. The concept began as a approach for Nurse to offer away her brother’s season tickets each occasionally however it ended up with a $50,000 donation from Rogers and a partnership with Black Girl Hockey Club, a non-profit group targeted on making hockey extra inclusive.

“People want to be involved in anything she does,” Balshin mentioned. “That’s kind of how we snowball things over here.”

On high of promotional appearances and occasions, Nurse posts paid promotions on social media and has gotten extra lively on TikTook, posting movies whereas doing her make-up or skincare, or offering motivation to younger women and girls who go to her channels. Everything will get put right into a content material calendar that Balshin manages, and each morning she sends Nurse a textual content outlining “everything we have to worry about today.”

“She has made our lives a lot happier,” Nurse mentioned. “We got to a point where there was just too much happening and we couldn’t facilitate everything.”

With every part happening off the ice, it’s simple to overlook that Nurse is one in every of Canada’s greatest hockey gamers and a face of the PWHL in Toronto. She’s additionally the vice chairman of the PWHL Players Association and is on the Hockey Canada participant committee.

“I would love to sit down and see her calendar,” Ambrose mentioned. “I am in awe of what she does away from the rink. I am in awe of what she does at the rink. I truthfully don’t know how she does it but I love her for it.”

Nurse is aware of it appears like there’s so much on her plate however insists she’s excellent at compartmentalizing. Ryan, additionally her coach with PWHL Toronto, says Nurse’s different obligations have “never negatively impacted who she is as a player.”

“I think she’s found ways to actually use it to make sure she still has an impact in the game,” he mentioned. “She’s under a spotlight and under a microscope so much. I think that sense of pride she probably gets with that has probably forced her to do the extra work.”

“I’m very conscious of the fact that for me to do all of this other stuff, I need to perform my best on the ice,” added Nurse, who scored two objectives 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. In the PWHL, the minimal wage $35,000, with some high gamers making as a lot as $100,000. Still, even the league’s greatest gamers aren’t getting wealthy taking part in ladies’s skilled hockey.

“The marketing does mean a lot to them and is a main source of income,” Balshin mentioned.

The work that Nurse is placing in can also be laying the observe for all times after hockey, each time that comes. It would 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 definitely have aspirations to expand and grow into different sectors,” she mentioned.

“We want her to be a face of hockey, period, not just women’s hockey. And of inclusion in sport,” Balshin mentioned. “She wants to show young girls that they can be so many things.”

(Illustration: Daniel Goldfarb / The Athletic. Photos: Mark Blinch / Getty Images, Nicole Osborne / NHLI by way of Getty Images)