DENVER (AP) — Should Taylor Makar someday make the roster, big brother Cale needs to consider altering the back of his Colorado Avalanche sweater.
That's the running joke of Taylor, anyway — a “C. Makar” modification from simply "Makar" to make room for “T. Makar.”
One Makar on the blue line and another at forward is something they've thought about since they were growing up in Calgary, Alberta. Because of their age difference — Cale is more than 2 years older — the tandem has never really been on the same elite team.
If it happens with the Avalanche, they could join the likes of the Hughes brothers, who have Jack and Luke suiting up together with the New Jersey Devils (brother Quinn plays for Vancouver).
Cale, of course, is already well-established as one of the league's top defensemen and coming off a season in which he won the Norris Trophy. Taylor keeps working his way toward the NHL. He started last year at the University of Maine before joining the Avalanche's American Hockey League affiliate, the Colorado Eagles, for the remainder of the season.
When big brother speaks, Taylor carefully listens.
“I learn a lot from him,” said Taylor, who’s taking part in the Avalanche’s development camp this week but not skating as he rehabs from an upper body injury. “Obviously, we train together. Do everything. It’s just cool.”
He cracked: “Hopefully, he has to put a ‘C’ (for C. Makar) on his (sweater)."
Although, it's not a requirement by the league.
The Makar brothers are highly competitive in whatever hobby, activity or sport in which they challenge each other.
By Taylor's scorecard, he reigns over Cale in cribbage, basketball, board games and video games. He gives Cale the edge on the golf course and sometimes in tennis.
To hear Cale tell it, though, the rules sometimes get bent.
“He’s the feisty little brother that would cheap-shot you when everything was said and done," Cale recently said. “I’d usually win and then for some reason I’d call it quits and he kind of gave me cheap shots. As kids, we had a lot of fun like that. It definitely brings back a lot of memories. I think it’s helped us later in life in competitiveness."
Cale made his NHL debut in the 2019 Stanley Cup playoffs and has been a goal-scoring, puck-defending force ever since. He's coming off a season in which he had 30 goals as he became the first NHL defenseman to reach that mark since Mike Green scored 31 for Washington in 2008-09.
No surprise, Cale was awarded the Norris Trophy as the league's top defenseman (he also won the award in 2022, the season Colorado captured the Stanley Cup).
Now this was a surprise — the secret celebration his younger brother helped spring to commemorate the achievement. Taylor played a role in organizing a golf outing for the unsuspecting Cale as family and friends gathered in the backyard for the trophy presentation.
When the group stopped by during their round, everyone was waiting.
“It turned out well, and he was pretty excited,” explained Taylor, a seventh-round pick by Colorado in 2021. “It was a cool, special moment for all the people that are really close to him and our family to share together.”
For Taylor, there's no added pressure having “Makar” on the back of his sweater given his brother's success. In fact, it’s “pretty cool,” he conceded.
Big brother's biggest piece of advice?
“Just be myself,” Taylor said.
Cale, 26, certainly is proud of his younger brother. The 24-year-old Taylor is coming off a season at Maine where he scored 18 goals and had 12 assists in 38 games. He then signed an entry-level deal and joined the Eagles, scoring a goal in five regular-season games.
“I think he’s got a lot of intangibles that once he puts them all together he’s got a really bright career ahead,” said Cale, who was the fourth overall pick by the Avalanche in 2017. “It’s cool to be able to have family this close now.”
In April, Cale ventured up to Loveland, Colorado, to watch his brother play for the Eagles. Of course, there were extenuating circumstances — Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog was with the Eagles on a conditioning assignment in his recovery from a serious knee injury. It marked Landeskog's first professional game since Colorado's Cup run in 2022.
“First time I’ve seen (Taylor) play live at least since (youth hockey)," said Cale, who along with teammate Nathan MacKinnon was part of Team Canada's first six players chosen to take part in the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics.
Taylor's road to making the Avalanche roster to start the season figures to be difficult. Colorado is a bona fide title contender and stacked at forward.
“Just keep working hard, keep learning,” Taylor said. “Got a ways to go, but just put everything out there.”
AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl
FILE - Maine forward Taylor Makar (18) reacts during the first period of an NCAA hockey game against Northeastern on Oct. 26, 2024, in Boston. (AP Photo/Greg M. Cooper, file)
FILE - Colorado Avalanche defenseman Cale Makar looks on during a face-off during the first period of Game 5 of a first-round NHL hockey playoff series against the Dallas Stars in Dallas, April 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Gareth Patterson, file)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United States attacked Iran early Sunday over an Iranian strike on a container ship in the Strait of Hormuz that set it ablaze and left one crew member missing. Iran responded with attacks on countries in the Middle East including Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and Oman — the nation on the other side of the strait that Tehran has pressed to join in managing traffic there.
The fighting raised new questions as Iran and the U.S. are nearly at the midway point of the 60-day period of their interim deal aimed at reaching a permanent end to the war.
The strait, a key route for the global supply of oil and natural gas and long considered an international waterway, has become the key sticking point in negotiations that seem in danger of collapse.
The U.S. military’s Central Command said it hit some 140 targets, including missile and drone launch sites, ammunition dumps, communication equipment and other sites. It said the attacks, heavier than in recent days, would weaken Iran’s ability to threaten shipping.
“We bombed the hell out of them last night,” President Donald Trump told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Semiofficial Iranian news agencies reported that a navy officer was killed. Iran retaliated by attacking nations in the region hosting U.S. military forces, while insisting it alone must control the strait and potentially charge vessels for traveling through it.
“The era of one-sided deals is OVER,” Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament and a main negotiator, wrote. “We told you: keep your word or pay the price. Reality is knocking.”
The U.S. has launched three rounds of airstrikes targeting Iran in the last week over Iranian attacks on ships heading through the strait using a route off Oman, seeking to avoid the Islamic Republic’s territorial waters.
The U.S. military and Trump asserted that the strait remained open Sunday. Iran said it was closed until calm is restored, and Tehran would consider targeting “additional enemy bases in the region” if it faced more attacks.
The U.S. military said over 140 ships had transited the strait over the past week. A multinational body overseen by the U.S. Navy said traffic continued “at reduced levels” off both Oman and Iran. It said nearly 140 vessels transited daily before the war.
About a fifth of all traded oil and natural gas passed through the strait before the war began. Iran’s grip on it led to a global energy crisis, though oil prices have sharply dropped since wartime highs of $120 a barrel.
Missile alerts sounded across several Gulf Arab countries.
Qatar's military said it intercepted incoming Iranian fire, with explosions heard in the neighboring United Arab Emirates. Three people, including a child, were wounded as a result of shrapnel from the interception of Iranian attacks, Qatar's Interior Ministry said, giving no further details on their condition.
Missile alerts sounded in Bahrain, an island kingdom in the Persian Gulf home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet. Kuwait's military also said it was intercepting incoming fire.
A day after Oman and Iran held talks on the strait, the Omani state news agency said drones struck sites in an area that sits on the waterway.
Oman summoned the Iranian ambassador to protest the strikes, the first such move since the war began, calling Iran's acts “irresponsible.”
Three Iranian missiles struck areas across Jordan, causing minor damage but no injuries, Jordan's state news agency reported.
Sirens also sounded in the UAE, but the government said missiles did not cross into its territory.
A Cyprus-flagged container ship was hit by Iran and suffered “significant engine room damage,” the U.S. Central Command said.
Oman's maritime authority said it rescued 23 crew members but one was missing. India’s Ministry of External Affairs said the missing man is an Indian national and it was working with Oman to locate him.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center, overseen by the British military, said the ship had been hugging Oman's shoreline.
Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said multiple vessels “disregarded our warnings" and ignored instructions to follow what it called an approved route. One “was struck by a warning shot and brought to a stop.”
Iranian state media later reported U.S. strikes across the country, including southern Iran in the province closest to the strait and military sites in a province near Tehran.
The strait sits in both Iran and Oman's territorial waters. Oman on Saturday said it and Iran agreed to continue discussing the strait “at the technical and political levels.” Iran offered no statement about the strait being open to all, something sought by the Trump administration.
Trump suggested last week that the interim deal in the war was “over.” But mediators, including Pakistan, Qatar and Egypt, have continued efforts to reach an agreement. A regional official involved in the mediation, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss those talks, said efforts to shore up the ceasefire continued Sunday. Pakistan said its foreign minister spoke by phone with Iran's top diplomat and urged “de-escalation” on both sides.
Iran’s new supreme leader, still unseen since the war began, on Saturday vowed in his first statement since the funeral of his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that Iranians would avenge his killing in the war’s opening strikes on Feb. 28.
Such revenge “is the will of our nation and must certainly be carried out,” Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei said in a statement carried on state television.
Weissert reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Samy Magdy in Cairo; Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel; Munir Ahmed in Islamabad and Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this report.
A pro-government demonstrator wears an Iranian flag as she waves a religious flag in a gathering commemorating the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at a square in Tehran, Saturday, July 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A man holds a poster of the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a gathering commemorating him at a square in Tehran, Saturday, July 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A pro-government demonstrator wears an Iranian flag as she holds a religious flag in a gathering commemorating the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at a square in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, July 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Pro-government demonstrators wave Iranian and religious flags in a gathering commemorating the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at a square in Tehran, Saturday, July 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A pro-government demonstrator waves an Iranian flag in a gathering commemorating the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at a square in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, July 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
