Members of the Pioneer Press sports staff who cover the Vikings forecast Sunday’s game in Minneapolis against the Bengals:

DANE MIZUTANI

Carson Wentz #11 of the Minnesota Vikings warms up prior to the game against the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field on Sept. 08, 2025 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images)

Vikings 28, Bengals 27: The battle of the backups! Carson Wentz has started 94 games in the NFL. That experience will give Wentz the slight edge over Jake Browning this weekend, and thus, the Vikings the slight edge over the Bengals.

CHARLEY WALTERS

Bengals 17, Vikings 14: J.J. McCarthy out. Joe Burrow out. Kirk Cousins lurks. The Vikings are in trouble.

JOHN SHIPLEY

Bengals 14, Vikings 12: No one knows how good Carson Wentz will be on Sunday in his first start with the Vikings, but after last week it’s difficult to pick the Vikings.

JACE FREDERICK

Vikings 23, Bengals 14: Brian Flores’ defense — the Vikings’ best unit — is a good bet to intercept Jake Browning multiple times. So if Kevin O’Connell allows himself to go vanilla and repeatedly run Jordan Mason, the Vikings should breeze to a boring, yet comfortable victory.

Related Articles

The Loop NFL Picks: Week 3

Max Brosmer is suddenly the backup for the Vikings. How is he staying ready?

Why veteran Carson Wentz might be the perfect quarterback for the Vikings right now

The Loop Fantasy Football Report Week 3: Burrow’s turf toe pains many

Carson Wentz will lead the Vikings for now. Here’s a look at his most recent NFL starts.

Of all of the losses suffered by the Minnesota Wild last season, none hit the team harder than the sudden passing of team executive Ray Shero in April.

Shero, 62, was a senior advisor for the team at the time of his passing. He won the 2008 Stanley Cup as general manager of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

On Friday, the NHL announced that Shero will be posthumously awarded the 2025 Lester Patrick Trophy for outstanding service to hockey in the U.S.

“His true legacy will be as a man who embodied the best of our game: fierce competition on the ice and welcoming fellowship off the ice,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said in a statement from the league. “Widely respected throughout hockey for his team-building acumen and eye for talent, he was even more beloved for how he treated everyone fortunate enough to have known him.”

Shero will be formally honored as part of the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame Induction Celebration Dec. 10 in St. Paul. Ray Shero’s father, Fred Shero, was honored with the 1980 Lester Patrick Trophy.

Related Articles

Mizutani: Kirill Kaprizov’s contract dispute is a distraction, though Wild say otherwise

Kirill Kaprizov says he’s happy in ‘Minny’ as Wild camp begins

Wild coach John Hynes will be Olympic assistant

New Iowa Wild coach brings wealth of NHL and AHL experience

Jonas Brodin expected to miss Wild training camp

Back in 1980, Saint Paulite Sally Ordway Irvine announced a clear and inclusive vision to create “a place for lots of music — no, lots of everything! And for everybody!” She imagined a venue offering everything from opera to circus. Sally’s vision is alive today as the Ordway Center for Performing Arts has become one of the nation’s leading performing arts centers that is home to a variety of performances that encompass the finest in Broadway musicals, concerts, dance and vocal artists.

At Blaze Credit Union, our core action is to “Give Back,” and everything we do is in service to our members and the community. Blaze CU is a long-time supporter of the Ordway Center as it shares similar values, and our partnership is nothing short of harmonious. The arts hold incredible value in the lives of so many, and the Ordway’s work drives creativity and innovation, arts education, community togetherness, and significant economic impact for the state of Minnesota.

As the Ordway marks its 40th anniversary, we reflect not just on time passed, but on the legacy of art excellence, education and accessibility it has had on Saint Paul and Minnesota as a whole. And it would not be possible without you – the community supporting the arts here in Minnesota.

2025 has been a particularly eventful year at the Ordway, marking three significant milestones: Its 40th anniversary, the 25th annual Flint Hills Family Festival and the 10th year since the construction of the venue’s award-winning Concert Hall. Each represents a distinct chapter in our commitment to making the performing arts available to audiences of all ages and backgrounds.

The Ordway has worked hard to live up to Sally Ordway Irvine’s original commitment. Starting with the Ordway’s grand opening in 1985 featuring artists like Ella Fitzgerald and Leontyne Price, we’ve presented countless Broadway productions like Les Misérables, RENT and SIX, concerts, dance groups, and comedians. Everyone from Alice Cooper to circus animal puppeteers have graced our stages. We want to continue to offer a wide array of performing arts to Minnesotans.

The Flint Hills Family Festival has become a cornerstone summer event, providing millions of kids and families of all backgrounds a chance to come together to experience the arts for free. Additionally, the Ordway is the shared home of the Minnesota Opera, The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and Schubert Club, and collectively they form the Arts Partnership, a strategic alliance and groundbreaking national model of arts collaboration.

Related Articles

Sabrina S. Fu: To see the caring human underneath

Real World Economics: When Fed’s mandates are in conflict

Skywatch: Shoot high for celestial treasures

Your Money: How are you feeling about money? (no, really.)

Joe Soucheray: What we want to know is: who is running this country?

The Ordway as we know it today, would not exist without the incredible support of the public and the wonderful arts community in Minnesota. That’s why we are inviting you to join us for a free open house on Sunday, Sept. 21, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. It’s our way of saying thank you! Experience backstage tours, enjoy over 30 celebratory performances, try on costumes, explore our history and participate in activities for all ages.

As Sally Ordway Irvine shared more than 40 years ago, art is for everybody. We are honored to bring world-class performing arts to our region and work to break down barriers so more people can enjoy them. We are also deeply grateful to live in a region and state with incredible artistic talents, creativity and arts lovers. Engagement is what keeps the arts alive. So, as the Ordway celebrates this anniversary, we encourage you to get involved and see live performing arts. Your seat – whether it’s at the Ordway or the wider arts community – is waiting.

Dan Stoltz, board president of the Ordway Center for Performing Arts, is president and CEO of Blaze Credit Union.

By HALLIE GOLDEN

Days after Meagan Brazil-Sheehan’s 6-year-old son was diagnosed with leukemia, they were walking down the halls of UMass Memorial Children’s Medical Center when they ran into Robin the Robot.

Related Articles

Kennedy’s vaccine advisers weigh COVID-19 shot recommendations

When self-doubt creeps in at work, pause and reframe your negative thoughts. Here’s how

Lice pose no health threat, yet some parents push back on rules to allow affected kids in class

Trump administration to close Miami organ donation group it calls ‘failing’

Why are more older people dying after falls?

“Luca, how are you?” it asked in a high-pitched voice programmed to sound like a 7-year-old girl. “It’s been awhile.”

Brazil-Sheehan said they had only met the 4-foot-tall robot with a large screen displaying cartoonlike features once before after they were admitted several days earlier.

“His face lit up,” she said about the interaction in June in Worcester, Massachusetts. “It was so special because she remembered him.”

Robin is an artificial intelligence -powered therapeutic robot programed to act like a little girl as it provides emotional support at nursing homes and hospital pediatric units while helping combat staffing shortages. Five years after launching in the U.S., it has become a familiar face in 30 health care facilities in California, Massachusetts, New York and Indiana.

“Nurses and medical staff are really overworked, under a lot of pressure, and unfortunately, a lot of times they don’t have capacity to provide engagement and connection to patients,” said Karen Khachikyan, CEO of Expper Technologies, which developed the robot. “Robin helps to alleviate that part from them.”

As AI increasingly becomes a part of daily life, it’s found a foothold in medical care — providing everything from note-taking during exams to electronic nurses. While heralded by some for the efficiency it brings, others worry about its impact on patient care.

Robin is about 30% autonomous, while a team of operators working remotely controls the rest under the watchful eyes of clinical staff. Khachikyan said that with each interaction, they’re able to collect more data — while still complying with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA — and get closer to it being able to function independently.

“Imagine a pure emotional intelligence like WALL-E. We’re trying to create that,” he said, referencing the 2008 animated film.

Making its rounds

On a recent Friday, a staff member at HealthBridge Children’s Hospital in Orange County, California, read off a list of patients she needed Robin to visit, along with the amount of time to spend with each one.

The robot with a sleek white triangle-shaped frame that Khachikyan said was designed for hugging, rolled into a room with a teenager injured in a car accident. The robot played what it described as his favorite song — “No Fear” by DeJ Loaf — and he danced along. In the hallway, Robin cracked up a young child held by her mother when it put on a series of silly glasses and a big red nose. In another room, the robot played a simplified version of tic-tac-toe with a patient.

Samantha da Silva, speech language pathologist at the hospital, said patients light up when Robin comes into their room and not only remembers their names but their favorite music.

“She brings joy to everyone,” da Silva said. “She walks down the halls, everyone loves to chat with her, say hello.”

Robin mirrors the emotions of the person it is talking with, explained Khachikyan. If the patient is laughing then the robot laughs along, but if they’re sharing something difficult, its face reflects sadness and empathy.

In nursing homes, Robin plays memory games with people suffering from dementia, takes them through breathing exercises on difficult days and offers them a form of companionship that resembles a grandchild with a grandparent.

Khachikyan recalled a moment last year at a facility in Los Angeles where a woman was having a panic attack and asked specifically for the robot. Robin played songs by her favorite musician and videos of her favorite animal — Elvis Presley and puppies — until she had calmed down.

But with the Association of American Medical Colleges projecting that the U.S. will face a shortage of up to 86,000 physicians in the next 11 years, Khachikyan’s vision for Robin goes far beyond this type of support.

He said they’re working to make the robot able to measure patients’ vitals and check to see how they’re doing and then send that information to their medical team. Longer term plans include designing Robin to help elderly patients change their clothes and go to the bathroom.

“Our goal is to design the next evolution of Robin; that Robin will take more and more responsibilities and become even more essential part of care delivery,” Khachikyan said.

He clarified that it’s not about replacing health care workers but about filling in the gaps in the workforce.

At UMass Memorial Children’s, the robot is very much a part of a team of support for patients. When Luca needed an IV after not getting one in a while, Micaela Cotas, a certified child life specialist came in with the robot and showed him an IV and what was about to happen, and then Robin played a cartoon of it getting an IV put in.

“It just kind of helps show that Robin has gone through those procedures as well, just like a peer,” Cotas said.

Finding its niche

Robin was developed by Khachikyan while he was getting his Ph.D. He said growing up in a single-parent household in Armenia had been lonely, so years later he wanted to build a type of robot that could act as a person’s friend.

Developers tested it in a variety of industries before an investor suggested that pediatric hospitals would be a good fit because of the stress and loneliness children often feel.

“That was kind of an aha moment,” he said. “We decided, OK let’s try it.”

They had success introducing it at a pediatric hospital in Armenia and by 2020 launched a pilot program at UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital.

Since Robin was created, its personality and character have changed significantly based on the responses from people it interacts with.

Khachikyan gave the example of Robin’s answer to the question: “What is your favorite animal.” Initially they tried having the robot respond with dog. They also tried cat. But when they tried chicken, the children cracked up. So they stuck with it.

“We created Robin’s personality by really taking users into the equation,” he said. “So we often say that Robin was designed by users.”

Associated Press journalist Damian Dovarganes contributed to this report.