I remember being perplexed upon moving to the United States to find that the Karpov-Kasparov battles were in the Living/Style section of the newspaper, not the sports section.
And that my coworkers found it hilarious that I expected ESPN to have a show where experts analyzed the day’s match!
In AFL there are the Daniher brothers Anthony, Neale, Terry and Chris who played a combined 752 games including one where all four ran out for Essendon.
In the same period and at the same club were the Hughes brothers Mark, Gary & Graeme.
Gary had three sons who also played for Canterbury and Graeme was the last person to play for NSW in rugby league and cricket.
This is all very interesting.
Just curious, how much of these would be due to nature, or to nurture, or to family connections?
It would be remiss of me not to include the Ella brothers (twins) Mark, Glen and Gary who all played international rugby union. Mark in particular being one of the greats of the sport.
As the meme goes, “quantity has it’s own quality” and so I’d also mention the Howes in Sydney club hockey for Glebe. The Howes were from a family of 18 (which is why we have television) and there was at least one occasion with a photo to prove it of a game where all the 11 players were brothers with a gap in ages of over 30 years.
I’m sure some combination of each. A lot of things have to go right.
Wow!
Given that, in ice hockey, the legendary Gordie Howe played with two of his sons during the 1970s, it appears that, in old English, “Howe” may mean “hockey.” 
I think the Sutter brothers still top the list. Six of seven brothers made it into the NHL, four of them went on after their playing career to become coaches in the NHL.
They had six Stanley cups between them, Five of the six brothers were first round draft picks, and four were NHL All-stars. The seventh brother was reportedly the best of the bunch at hockey, but wanted to run the damily farm instead.
The Sutter’s kids are also hockey players. Six of them went pro, three into the NHL. That’s 9 Sutters in the NHL at various times.
I will give you the Mohammad brothers. Hanif, Wazir, Mushtaq, Sadiq. All did not just play at top-level cricket in their country (Pakistan), they played in the national, representive team (ie, they were in the best 11 cricketers). Hanif and Mushtaq also captained their country.
A fifth brother, Raees, was 12th man (ie, first substitute) for the National Test team.
I got the Chappell brothers but forgot my own Mohammad brothers. Someone in Pakistan (AK84?) is canceling my birth certificate, quite justifiably.
The Plumlee brothers (Miles, Mason, and Marshall) all earned scholarships to Duke University’s basketball program. They may not have set the world on fire as NBA players, but since Duke’s tuition is over $60,000 per year - that’s not a bad return!
I just looked up families with at least 3 players in the NHL. There are a surprising number of them:
Curt, Harvey and Bill Bennet
Reg, Doug, and Max Bentley
Christian, JP amd Paulin Bordelau
George, Billy, Frank, and Robert Boucher
Neil, Aaron, and Paul Broten
Paul, Mike, and Aaron Comrie
Lionel, Charlie nd Roy Conacher
Bill, Bunn, and Bud Cook
Bob, Mark, and Lou Crawford
Brian, Barry, and Ray Cullen
Okay, I’m only into the C’s, so I’m going to,stop there. Summary:
Families with 6 players in NHL: 1
Families with 4 players in NHL: 4
Families with 3 players in the NHL: 45
I’m reminded of the old joke about the winningest sibling combination in baseball history being Cy Young and his sisters.*
*actually he only had one sister along with three brothers.
There was a similar joke about the brothers with the most NHL goals being the Gretzky brothers: Wayne (894) and Brent (1).
No mention of motorsports yet. The most famous trio would be the Unser brothers, Bobby, Jerry and Al. Bobby won the Indianapolis 500 3 times, 2 USAC championship and one of the top drivers for wins in both USAC Champ cars and stock cars. Jerry was a USAC stock car champion and looked to have bright future in champ car but died while practicing for the 1959 Indy 500. Al had the most success at Indy, winning 4 times. Both Bobby and Al won the Pikes Peak Hill Climb. Al’s son Al Jr. was also an Indy 500 winner and CART champion.
In NASCAR, the only trio of brothers to win at the Cup level was the Flock brothers, Tim, Fonty and Bob. Together they won a total of 39 races back in the 1950’s. The only other brother trio to have any kind of success would be the Bodine brothers, Geoffrey won 18 Cup races along with wins in the Xfinity and truck series. Brett won a Cup race and 5 Xfinity races, Todd won 15 Xfinity races and 22 truck races and is the only Bodine to win a NASCAR championship, he won truck series titles in 2006 and 2010.
As a Giants fan I don’t think Eli (or Phil Simms) belongs in the hall of fame. They’re both close, but not quite there. I tend to favor a small hall of fame.
On a related note, for quite a few years, ESPN aired the National Spelling Bee, live. Later, it was on network TV, and now, it’s on the ION channel on tape delay.
It’s supposed to be all in the same sport. Robert played football, not hockey. It was a pretty inspirational story, actually, as he was originally one of the equipment guys for the team before he became a player on the team.
Not necessarily (though a lot of the examples given in the thread are all within one sport). Even the OP gives an example of brothers who excelled in two different sports.
It was an awkward setup for a Waterboy joke.
I looked up Phil and Steve Mahre, fraternal twins who won gold and silver in men’s slalom at the 1984 Wnter Olympics. I don’t think they qualify for the thread, though. They had seven additional siblings, but I don’t find anything about any other athletes in the family.
Phil’s Wikipedia page has a link to a page of Olympic families. Scrolling through the list (and it’s a long one):
Gösta, Sture, Erick, and Tomas Pettersson (7 medals, cycling, '64 to '68)
Giuseppe, Carmin, and Agostino Abbagnale (9 medals, rowing, '84 to '00)
Tirunesh, Ejegayehu, and Genzebe Dibaba (8 medals, distance running, '04 to '16)