Inside the visitors locker room at Bridgestone Arena on Wednesday night, most Minnesota Wild players still had wet hair from their postgame showers after closing the pre-Olympics portion of their schedule with a 6-5 win over the Nashville Predators.

Outside the room, as he spoke to reporters in front of a backdrop festooned with the Wild’s logo, coach John Hynes reflected on the win, which gave his team a 8-1-1 mark in its last 10. But in his head, Hynes was already switching his mental focus from the Wild to Team USA.

“Now it actually flips,” said Hynes, an assistant coach for the U.S. team. “Now the Wild goes on to break for a little bit. It’s kind of all getting pumped up for (Olympics) the next couple of days before you travel, and it’s all-in on that. So, I’m excited. It should be a great opportunity and it’s something we’re looking forward to.”

Hynes and his family will arrive in Italy on Saturday. He will fill the same role he had in 2025 during the 4 Nations Face-Off in February, when the Americans earned a silver medal, and the IIHF World Championship in May, where Team USA won its first gold medal since 1934.

Minnesota will be well-represented next week when the men’s hockey games begin at the hastily-constructed rinks in Milan.

Wild general manager Bill Guerin serves the same role for Team USA and put together the team they hope will earn the nation’s first Olympic gold medal since the 1980 Miracle on Ice. Two Wild team trainers and one of the team’s doctors will head to Italy to work for the Americans. And on the ice, eight current Wild players and two from the minor leagues will represent five countries: Sweden, USA, Germany, Czechia and Slovakia.

While the players were clearly focused on the five consecutive NHL games they won before heading across the Atlantic, some international rivalries have been creeping into Wild practice for weeks.

After Joel Eriksson Ek returned from injury to score four goals in a five-game stretch before the break, Hynes openly speculated about the American defenders who will be needed to protect their net-front from the hulking Swede should they meet in the medal round. Wild forward Nico Sturm has been breaking in his Team Germany skates at a few Minnesota practices, and joked about hiding his on-ice moves from NHL teammates that may be foes in Italy.

“I don’t have any good stuff to hide. This is my best,” he said with a grin. “They get my best every day in games, in practice, so I’ve got nothing to hide. I guess I’ve got to come up with something.”

Wild goalie Filip Gustavsson has occasionally been wearing his blue-and-gold Team Sweden gloves and leg pads in practice to break them in. That is a process that takes a few hours of facing pucks in most cases, but he admitted that the pads he will wear at the Olympics have taken a little longer to soften up. He will be looking to backstop Sweden’s first men’s hockey gold medal since 2006, the last time the Games were in Italy.

Team Sweden, which features Wild players Eriksson Ek, Gustavsson, Marcus Johansson and Jesper Wallstedt, has its Olympic debut on Wednesday against Italy at 2:10 p.m. Minnesota time.

Team USA, which includes Hynes, forward Matt Boldy and defensemen Quinn Hughes and Brock Faber, opens the Olympics on Thursday with a game versus Latvia at 2:10 p.m. Minnesota time. Sturm and Team Germany take on Denmark at the same time that day.

Wild minor league defenseman David Spacek will represent Czechia, and Wild goalie prospect Samuel Halavaj will skate for Slovakia.

Gustavsson joked that if he faces the Americans or the Germans in Milan, they will have little idea of what to expect from him after a campaign of subterfuge over the past month or so.

“I’m doing different saves now, so they don’t know what my normal saves are. They think they can shoot where it’s open, and it’s not going to be open,” Gustavsson said with a grin. “They all think they can score on me, but it’s not gonna happen.”

When asked about his goalie practicing the art of deception in Wild practices, Hynes flashed a broad smile and snapped into his Team USA headspace quickly.

“Good,” Hynes said. “That means we’re in his head already.”

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Minnesota improved its rotation Thursday, hours ahead of the NBA trade deadline.

The Timberwolves completed a deal to bring in Ayo Dosunmu and Julian Phillips from Chicago in exchange for Rob Dillingham, Leonard Miller and four second-round picks, a source confirmed to the Pioneer Press.

Dosunmu is the prize in the transaction. The recently turned 26-year-old guard is averaging 15 points a game this season while shooting 45% from 3-point range and serving as an apt defender.

He’s a facsimile of Nickeil Alexander-Walker, the standout reserve guard Minnesota lost to free agency last summer, and hasn’t been able to replace thus far this season.

Dosunmu slides in nicely as Minnesota’s seventh man. And, along with Naz Reid and Bones Hyland — who has shown flashes of late — Minnesota could have a sound top eight with which to move toward the postseason.

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By JOVANA GEC

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — It may be out of place on a busy downtown street and it may be a bit run down, but this small mansion in central Belgrade is thriving.

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Its walls crumbling and shutters closed, a 19th century house filled with period furniture is keeping a piece of the Serbian capital’s history intact even as everything around it has transformed. The house has endured on one of the city’s main thoroughfares, turning into a theater named Takovska17.

Built in 1894 by a prominent Belgrade family, the house at 17 Takovska street is listed as a protected heritage site. Located across the street from the headquarters of Serbian public broadcaster RTS, cars and trolley buses rumble by constantly.

Step indoors and it could as easily be a winter afternoon in 1926. Several local theater troupes have made Takovska17 their home, staging plays from the early 20th century in front of audiences of just a few dozen people.

“This house has become a true little theater with its own repertoire,” said Isidora Ristic, who is acting in a murder mystery with the Artisti amateur troupe. “It’s become a character in our plays.”

Tamara Masic, an architect and a member of the troupe, said she is happy to see that the old house has survived in its original form.

The actors, she said, “have had the honor to breath a new life into this object and give it a new glow.”

The period atmosphere and intimate setting has been such a success that there often is a waiting list for tickets.

Inside, colors on the walls have faded with age and many decorations are hardly visible. Wooden floor boards bear the deep marks of more than a century of use, much of its decor dating back to the early 20th century.

The house “really is like a museum,” Masic said.

Elsewhere in Belgrade, scores of similar houses have been torn down by investors, wiping out entire residential neighborhoods and replacing them with multistorey buildings.

But Takovska17 “refuses to go,” its web page says. “It has been here since 1894, proud, smelling of old wood and new stories.”

By CHEYANNE MUMPHREY

People use music to set moods, create a desired atmosphere and evoke memories of family and friends. The right song at the right time can have similar effects for some dogs.

Pet owners, trainers and animal shelter workers sometimes use music as a training tool, a distraction from triggers and to create a relaxing environment for dogs kept in kennels or left alone at home. But researchers say music is context-dependent, meaning the effects vary based on dogs’ temperament, the setting, the type of tune and the volume at which it’s played.

Social media videos of dogs howling to music, relaxing to the sounds of specialty playlists or TV channels while their owners are at work, appearing to clam down while boarded, and getting exposed to the same song to assist with crate training show some of the ways music is integrated into pets’ lives.

While some trainers consider music to be a helpful, many animal behaviorists, who study animal psychology and understand complex behaviors, suggest additional research is needed to prove how much of an effect music has on dogs and in what situations. Here is how experts suggest making music a potentially paw-sitive experience:

FILE – An Afghan hound sleeps with a plush toy during the world dog show in Salzburg, Austria, on Friday, May 18, 2012. More than 30.000 dogs are expected to take part at the exhibition in Salzburg. (AP Photo/Kerstin Joensson, File)

Music as a support strategy

Many factors cause dogs to experience stress and anxiety, and there are as many behavioral responses. Dog behavior specialists and veterinarians say separation anxiety, noise phobias and other fears are common sources of stress and can exacerbate negative behaviors like aggression, submissive peeing or barking, or medical conditions that may a professional diagnosis or medication.

“Music may promote more relaxation for dogs, but it would not be the first thing I turn to if I want to reduce stress in dogs,” said Seana Dowling-Guyer, a lecturer at Tufts University’s Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine and associate director of a research program aimed at improving the lives of dogs in shelters or at risk of being given up by their owners.

Prior to her work at Tufts, Dowling-Guyer worked with shelter animals. The goal was to find them homes, but she noticed that dogs barking, jumping or getting excited in their enclosures sometimes “put off potential adopters.” The shelter staff tried to create a calmer environment playing music. Worker debates over the type of music to play is what led Dowling-Guyer to further research on the subject.

“I was interested in the practical application, not just for owners, but for veterinary offices, groomers or other situations where dogs were sometimes stressed or mildly uncomfortable,” she said, adding that music is not meant to be or should be considered a cure for anxious behaviors or conditions or be considered a replacement for more formalized training.

FILE – Dogs are seen at the New Leash On Life animal shelter, Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025, in Lebanon, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)

Not all dogs like all music

High Country Humane, an animal shelter in Flagstaff, Arizona, plays classical and instrumental music on the kennel floors.

“It’s really stressful here, and the classical music seems to help calm the dogs down,” shelter manager Megan Boyer said. “Everybody is a little bit less amped up. It’s a stress reliever for the dogs.”

Dog music compilations typically include elements of the music that’s designed to help humans relax or sleep but takes into account biological differences in how dogs hear and process sound.

“Dog-calming music is simplified classical music. It’s slow, repetitive, has a predictable structure and gentle notes. In an unpredictable environment, any kind of predictability using sounds could be soothing to an animal,” said Aniruddh Patel, a Tufts University psychology professor who studies music cognition in humans and other species.

But not all dogs like classical music or exhibit the same behaviors when exposed to similar genres, experts say. Lori Kogan, a Colorado State University professor who studies human-animal interactions, says “dogs tend to habituate to what they are used to” as opposed to innately preferring some types of music over others.

Citing similar human curiosity about the musical preferences of cows, Kogan said, “I don’t think cows are born liking country music. What’s happened is that the people they interact with play country music, and the animals have come to associate that music with positive things.”

How to know if music will help your dog

Many pet owners leave a TV on or music playing when they go out to stimulate or distract their dogs while they’re gone, Dowling-Guyer said. She recommends switching up the playlist or programming so pets do not get bored or come to associate a negative event, like their owners leaving, with a specific song.

Tawny Keiser, a 46-year-old family practice manager in the San Diego area, says a dog television channel on YouTube has become a fun diversion for Margarita, her 10-year-old pug who suffers from separation anxiety.

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“She recognizes the television and will sit and watch it. She’s engaged, and often gets really excited and jumps off the couch to sniff the screen,” Keiser said, adding that Margarita also loves dog cartoons that feature background music.

Paying attention to how a family pet reacts when you turn on home speakers can provide useful information. It’s important to watch for signs of discomfort, like lip-licking or panting, to determine if a dog doesn’t like the sounds, Dowling-Guyer said.

Otherwise, there is no harm in playing music for a pet, experts said. Don’t be discouraged if your dog doesn’t seem to engage with it, Dowling-Guyer said.

She also wants dog owners to be wary of trainers who say music is a solution for behavior concerns, saying “that is usually a red flag.”

The American College of Veterinary Behaviorists, a certifying board for specialist veterinarians, says pet owners may encounter services or advice that can inflict lasting physical and emotional damage on pets if certain training techniques are improperly applied. Experts suggest seeking trainers with the proper licensing, advanced degrees such as a doctor of veterinary medicine, or certification to address animal behavior, which can come from recognized organizations like the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists or the Animal Behavior Society.