The Big Dates This Season

Expect the bases to be busy. The Rays tied for second in the majors with 164 stolen bases this season and the Brewers ranked fifth with 162, MLB.com notes, and both have kept running in October: Tampa Bay is 11 for 11 on steals in nine playoff games, and Milwaukee 10 for 12 in eight.

Montreal Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki will be out two to four weeks with an upper-body injury, the team announced Thursday. He was hurt blocking a shot with his hand late in Montreal's 4-3 overtime loss to the San Jose Sharks.

Ethiopia's Ruti Aga, who won the 2019 Tokyo Marathon, has been banned for six years from March 15, 2026, the Athletics Integrity Unit announced October 22, for the presence and use of a prohibited substance and for tampering, Canadian Running reports.

Whoever wins this World Series wins it for the first time. The Tampa Bay Rays and Milwaukee Brewers are two of the five current franchises that have never won a title, with the Mariners, Padres and Rockies, and it is the first World Series between two such teams since the Phillies beat the Royals in 1980, MLB.com notes.

The men's and women's marathons at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics will each have 70 starters, down from 80, under the qualification system World Athletics has released, Canadian Running reports. The qualifying window opens November 1 and closes April 30, 2028.

World Aquatics will hold the 2027 Swimming World Cup in three Olympic host cities: Berlin on October 15–17, Paris on October 22–24 and London on October 29–31, Swimming World reports. It brings the series back to Europe for the first time since 2023.

The Hang Seng Bank Hong Kong Slam at Kai Tak Arena, October 19 to 25, is the first PPA Tour Asia 1500 event and the season finale of the tour's Asian circuit, with up to $1.1 million in prize money and payouts and 1,500 ranking points for champions, the richest professional pickleball event held in Asia, The Dink reports. Early rounds are done in several draws, with championship play this weekend; the tournament's schedule and streams are on the PPA Tour Asia site.

The NBA's 81st regular season began Tuesday, October 20, with a tripleheader on NBC and Peacock: Boston at Detroit, Philadelphia at New York and Oklahoma City at San Antonio, a rematch of last season's Western Conference finals.

All NFL trading for 2026 ends at 4 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, November 10, the league's calendar of important dates says. That is the Tuesday after Week 9, under the 2024 rule change that pushed the deadline back a week.

The Tim Hortons NHL Heritage Classic, the league's outdoor game, is Sunday, October 25, in Winnipeg, with the Jets hosting the Montreal Canadiens. Canadiens and Jets alumni play the day before, on Saturday, October 24, according to the league and the Jets' owner, True North Sports and Entertainment.

Major League Soccer's regular season ends Saturday, November 7, with Decision Day, when all 30 clubs play: Eastern Conference teams at 4 p.m. Eastern and Western Conference teams at 7 p.m., the league says. The top nine in each conference make the playoffs.

Garmin announced three GPS cycling computers on October 20, all on sale now.

Cannondale is closing its Connecticut headquarters, where the bike brand has been based since its founding in 1971, and moving its U.S. sales and operations to Santa Cruz, California, the company told employees and dealers on October 21, Velo reports.

The WTA Finals, the women's tour's season-ending championship for its top eight singles players and doubles teams, will be played November 8 to 15 at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden in California, after moving from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the Australian Associated Press reported when the tour announced the change in July.

The PGA Tour's fall series resumes Thursday, October 22, with the Butterfield Bermuda Championship at Port Royal Golf Course in Southampton, through Sunday. The tournaments after the Tour Championship are where players fight to keep or improve their status for next season, and each awards 500 FedExCup points to the winner.

World Athletics has published the 2027 Wanda Diamond League calendar, the 18th season of the sport's top one-day meeting series. It opens in Doha on May 7 and ends with a two-day final in Zurich on August 25 and 26, where the winner of each discipline is crowned Diamond League champion.

LIV Golf players have until Sunday, October 25, to opt in or out of what the league calls LIV 2.0, Golf Monthly reports, and after that the league's future lineup should become much clearer. Louis Oosthuizen is among those who have confirmed they are leaving, and Golf Magic reports that another major champion has also decided to quit.

Specialized and the Belgian team Quick-Step confirmed on Monday, October 19, the first day of road racing's off-season, that their partnership is over, Velo reports. The collaboration, which began in 2007, paused in 2010 and 2011 and ran continuously from 2012, brought the team known as the Wolf Pack more than 800 victories.

The Angels declined their option on manager Kurt Suzuki after one season and will seek a new manager and coaching staff for 2027, MLB.com reports; general manager John Mozeliak said the team's record was not a true reflection of Suzuki's abilities and offered him a role as a special assistant. Suzuki, 43, the first Hawaiian-born manager in the majors, played his last two seasons as a catcher with the Angels. Mozeliak's own contract is up in December.

South Africa's Pieter Coetze swam the short-course 50-meter backstroke in 22.09 at the Swimming World Cup stop in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, two hundredths under Kliment Kolesnikov's 22.11 world record, SwimSwam reports. Coetze has made his name over 100 and 200 meters, and the 50 back becomes an Olympic event at LA 2028, with places partly decided at next year's World Cup.

Andrei Vasilevskiy earned his 375th regular-season win as Tampa Bay beat Vegas 6-2 on Tuesday, moving past John Vanbiesbrouck into 19th on the NHL's all-time list. He got there in 605 games; each of the 18 goalies ahead of him needed at least 735, InGoal Magazine notes. Nikita Kucherov's three points in the game tied Steven Stamkos's franchise record of 1,137.