NHL players return to the Olympics for the first time since 2014 and they\u2019re eager to soak it all in:<\/p>\n
The Olympic Village experience and mingling with athletes in other sports.<\/p>\n
Facing the highest level of competition in an intense best-on-best tournament.<\/p>\n
Most of all, the enormous pride in representing their country on the biggest international stage.<\/p>\n
A trio of Detroit Red Wings are headed to Milano Cortina (Italy) for their first Olympic experience \u2013 Dylan Larkin (United States), Moritz Seider (Germany) and Lucas Raymond (Sweden).<\/p>\n
\u201cProbably been thinking about it my whole life, and it\u2019s a dream come true for myself and my family,\u201d Larkin said in an interview with ABC. \u201cI thank all my teammates and all the guys I\u2019ve played with and all the support staff that helped me get to that point.\u201d<\/p>\n
The U.S. is seeking its first gold medal since the 1980 Miracle on Ice and ranks right behind Canada on the list of favorites. Larkin played a key role for Team USA last year when it lost to Canada 3-2 in overtime in the 4 Nations Face-Off championship game.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust the fact that it is the best players all in one spot and you\u2019re playing against the best and you\u2019re playing with the best, I\u2019m excited to play with those guys,\u201d Larkin said.<\/p>\n
The U.S. is in Group C and opens with Latvia on Feb. 12 and faces Germany on Feb. 15, when Larkin and Seider square off.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll put the friendship and all the chemistry on the side and battle for our own countries,\u201d Seider said. \u201cAfterwards we can all laugh and talk. It definitely will be weird not seeing him in a Red Wings jersey with me on the same side.\u201d<\/p>\n
Germany has never won gold and is a longshot, but Seider recalled the excitement in 2018 when his country advanced to the title game before losing to the Olympic Athletes from Russia.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was a great tournament for hockey Germany, put us a little bit in the picture,\u201d Seider said. \u201cWhy not pull off another miracle like that? Anything\u2019s possible and you have to believe in those kind of moments.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s something you dream of as a kid, representing your country, making great memories in the village,\u201d Seider said. \u201cAnd the excitement is big. Just growing up, you always had your eye on the Games. It will be very special this year, especially with all the talent that\u2019s coming.\u201d<\/p>\n
Raymond was a month away from his fourth birthday when Sweden, with five Red Wings, won Olympic gold in 2006, but he remembers the disappointment in 2014 when Canada defeated his homeland for the gold.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven if you\u2019re not a hockey fan, you\u2019re watching the Olympics and this year with all the best players coming, I think it\u2019s going to attract a lot of people and a lot of eyes,\u201d Raymond said. \u201cYou want to represent the hockey in the best way possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you look at some of the greatest Swedish hockey players of all-time, a lot of those memories have come from the Olympics with (Peter) Forsberg, (Nicklas) Lidstrom, Henrik Lundqvist, when they won it. You want to put yourself in spots like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Raymond and others will maximize their time at the event.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeeing all the other athletes in the Village, it\u2019s kind of back to junior where everyone\u2019s just living together and you hang out all day,\u201d Raymond said. \u201cI\u2019m really excited for all of it. Get to watch some other sports as well. I\u2019m going to try to catch some of the cool games that you maybe don\u2019t watch otherwise, like bobsled and all those types of different, crazy sports.\u201d<\/p>\n
The NHL break started on Friday and the schedule resumes on Feb. 25.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re in the entertainment business and we have to promote our game around the world, and that\u2019s what the Olympics do,\u201d Red Wings coach Todd McLellan said. \u201cIt\u2019s the premier sporting event and the players have wanted to go for years. There\u2019s inherent risk to players going. We\u2019ve seen it happen in the past, but there\u2019s really nothing any of us can do about that. And the last thing those players are going to do is play it safe. They\u2019re going to play all out to win.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NHL players return to the Olympics for the first time since 2014 and they\u2019re eager to soak it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":448845,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5101],"tags":[599,93,5137,5,54403,4834,4,292,5149,3358,5138,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-448844","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-red-wings","8":"tag-detroit","9":"tag-detroit-red-wings","10":"tag-detroitredwings","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-mens-sports","13":"tag-mens-hockey","14":"tag-nhl","15":"tag-nhl-hockey","16":"tag-professional-hockey","17":"tag-red-wings","18":"tag-redwings","19":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116023740708790777","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/448845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}