Lockerlink

How to play

You are given two players, often from different eras. Build a chain of teammates between them. Type a player who shared a team and a season with either end of your chain and pick the name from the list.

A wrong name counts as a miss. Undo removes the last player you added, and a hint names the team of a good next link, then the player's initials. Par is the shortest chain possible.

Players come from lists we curated of well-known stars in each league, with team histories checked against Wikipedia and Wikidata. A player counts as a teammate when the two were on the same franchise in the same season; a team that moved or changed its name is one franchise. Baseball data comes from the Lahman Baseball Database, copyright 1996-2025 SABR, via Sean Lahman, used under CC BY-SA 3.0. We matched it to our own player list and combined it with other sources, so it is changed from the original. Football rosters come from nflverse (CC BY 4.0). Basketball and hockey rosters come from Wikipedia and its players' pages (CC BY-SA 4.0). All of it was matched and merged by us.

Questions

What counts as teammates?

Two players are teammates if they were on the same franchise in at least one common season. A franchise that moved or changed its name counts as one team, so the Seattle SuperSonics and the Oklahoma City Thunder are the same club.

Which players can I use?

Any player who ever appeared for a team in that league, from the first seasons to 2025: about 5,000 in the NBA, 27,000 in the NFL, 20,000 in MLB and 9,000 in the NHL. The two players you are asked to link are always well-known stars, but the players in between can be anyone. Coverage is not perfect: NBA and NHL rosters come from Wikipedia and miss some players, clubs that no longer exist are left out, and NFL rosters include some players who were on a roster without playing.

What is par?

Par is the fewest links needed to connect the two players, measured over every player in our database. The chain is solved when its two ends are teammates.

What is the Rival mode?

Finish a puzzle and press Challenge a friend. It makes a link to the same two players with your result in it, and sends or copies it. When your friend opens the link they get that pair in Rival mode and see who linked it better: fewer links wins, and misses and hints break a tie. Rival games do not touch your streak, rating or stats. The section This week's rivals lists the challenges you answered this week and how many you sent. Everything stays on your device, and nothing is stored on our side.

Where can I see the shortest chain?

On the result card right after you finish, and in the section under the puzzle called This week's shortest chains. It lists every puzzle so far this week with its shortest possible chain, the team and seasons that link each pair of players, and how you did. Last week is kept in a drop-down. Today's chain appears once you finish today's puzzle, or tomorrow.

How do the two ends work?

You can add a player next to the first player or next to the last player. If a player is a teammate of both ends, the chain closes.

How are stars awarded?

Three stars for matching par with no hints and at most two misses, two stars for par plus one, one star for anything longer.

Which sport is it today?

The daily puzzle rotates through the NBA, NFL, MLB and NHL. Practice mode lets you pick any sport and a difficulty.

Is there a rating or a leaderboard?

Yes. Each day you finish counts once toward a running Elo rating for this game, starting at 1000, and it is worked out by the rating service from your result and the difficulty of that day's puzzle. Without an account the rating stays on this device. Signed-in players can opt in to the all-time and weekly leaderboards under a display name.