March 18, 2026 NYT Connections Sports Edition #541 Hints and Answers

Puzzle #541 of New York Times word games Connections: Sports Edition is live for March 18, 2026. Today’s board leans into winter athletics and baseball stats — with a curveball category involving boxing cinema. Read through the hints and category reveals below before the full answers at the end.

What Is NYT Connections: Sports Edition?

Connections: Sports Edition is a daily word puzzle from The New York Times, developed in partnership with The Athletic. The game works exactly like the original Connections: you’re given 16 words and must sort them into four groups of four, each sharing a hidden sports-related thread.

Every group is color-coded by difficulty. Yellow is the easiest grouping, green is moderate, blue is harder, and purple is the trickiest of all. Guess a group correctly and those four words are cleared from the board. Guess wrong and it counts as a mistake — you’re allowed up to four before the game ends.

You can shuffle and rearrange the board at any time, which is especially useful when you’re stuck trying to see patterns. Like Wordle, you can share your results on social media after finishing.

How to Play

Select four words you believe share a common sports theme.
Submit your group — if correct, those words are removed from the board.
Each wrong guess counts as one of your four allowed mistakes.
Color coding: 🟨 Yellow (easiest) → 🟩 Green → 🟦 Blue → 🟪 Purple (hardest).

Category Hints — No Answers Yet

Not ready for the full reveal? Here are vague clues for each color group in today’s puzzle #541:

🟨 Yellow: These are things you might do on ice or snow during the Winter Olympics.
🟩 Green: A pitcher’s box score might show any of these four statistics after a game.
🟦 Blue: Each word here can precede or follow “ball,” describing a sphere used in a specific sport.
🟪 Purple: Think about the final word in the title of a famous film — these four words each end a classic movie name.

Category Names — Still No Words

If the hints above aren’t quite enough, here are the actual category names for March 18’s puzzle:

🟨 WINTER SPORTS
🟩 STAT FOR A PITCHER
🟦 SPORTS BALLS
🟪 LAST WORDS OF BOXING MOVIES

Full Answers — Connections Sports Edition #541

Ready for the complete solution? Here it is:

🟨 WINTER SPORTS — CURLING, HOCKEY, LUGE, SKELETON
🟩 STAT FOR A PITCHER — HOLD, QUALITY START, SAVE, WIN
🟦 SPORTS BALLS — CUE, GOLF, MEDICINE, PING PONG
🟪 LAST WORDS OF BOXING MOVIES — BABY, BALBOA, BULL, FIGHTER

What Made Today Tricky

The purple category was the stealthiest group in this puzzle. BABY, BALBOA, BULL, and FIGHTER don’t look like they belong together until you think about boxing movie titles: Million Dollar Baby, Creed (featuring Rocky Balboa), Raging Bull, and The Fighter. Without the film connection, these four words could easily be mistaken for random nouns or sports descriptors.

SKELETON was likely the trickiest yellow word — many people know skeleton as a bobsled-style event but might hesitate to classify it alongside CURLING and HOCKEY. LUGE and SKELETON are both ice-track sliding sports, which may prompt some players to try grouping them with something else entirely.

In the blue group, CUE might have caused confusion — the cue ball is a billiards object, not a traditional sports ball, so players thinking only of field or court sports may have overlooked it. MEDICINE BALL is also easy to forget as a “sports ball” since it’s more gym equipment than game equipment.

Tips for Today’s Puzzle

Start with Winter Sports (Yellow). If you follow any Olympic coverage, CURLING, HOCKEY, LUGE, and SKELETON should come naturally. Lock this group in first to clear space.
Work the baseball angle for Green. HOLD, SAVE, and WIN are common pitching stats — QUALITY START is the one that trips people up, as it’s a less-discussed but legitimate official stat.
Think “___ ball” for Blue. Running CUE, GOLF, MEDICINE, and PING PONG through the “___ ball” formula confirms each one: cue ball, golf ball, medicine ball, ping pong ball.
For Purple, think movie titles, not sports terms. BABY, BALBOA, BULL, and FIGHTER are all closing words in iconic boxing movie titles. If a word doesn’t fit a sport, try the film angle — especially in the purple group. coverage? Here are recent Connections: Sports Edition guides from dotwordle.com:

Playing other NYT puzzles today? We have you covered:

Shahid Maqsood

Shahid Maqsood is a digital entrepreneur and SEO specialist focused on building engaging web experiences. He is the creator of DotWordle, combining creativity with smart, user-friendly design.