MILAN \u2014 The world\u2019s No. 1 hockey player led Team Canada out for practice Sunday night.<\/p>\n
No one can blame Connor McDavid for being first in line out of the dressing room. No. 97 had waited 11 years into his spectacular NHL career to step onto an Olympic ice surface.<\/p>\n
\u201cSurreal, surreal,\u201d McDavid said afterwards. \u201cIt\u2019s been a long time. It\u2019s been a long time coming.\u201d<\/p>\n
The NHL season is a grind, full of days that blend into each other, sometimes making players sound like robots. This was not one of those days.<\/p>\n
For an entire generation of NHL stars, it was a moment that felt forever fleeting. The ultimate tease, like Charlie Brown and the football. NHLers were supposed to be in China four years ago, but COVID concerns cancelled those plans.<\/p>\n
On this day, as the NHL chartered most of its Olympians to Milan and teams stepped into a rink draped in Olympic logos for practice, the dream became real.<\/p>\n
Finally.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, for sure. I mean, being here, landing today and going through a little experience, getting checked into the village, definitely feels real now,\u201d said Team USA center Jack Eichel, who had been vocal for years about his desire to live out his Olympic dream. \u201cWe\u2019re here and obviously we fought hard for this. It means a lot to the players and I think we\u2019re all really excited to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt means a lot,\u201d added teammate Auston Matthews, Team USA\u2019s captain. \u201cIt\u2019s crazy to think about now we\u2019re here, and you get this opportunity, and it\u2019s just very special. \u2026 I think it definitely hits you once you touch down and get to the Olympic village and get settled in, just how special and cool it is to be here representing your country and experiencing what the Olympics is all about.\u201d<\/p>\n
The players made the Olympics a top item in collective bargaining with the owners. It was a must. They weren\u2019t going to back down on it. Some of those owners still aren\u2019t thrilled their players are here, but they weren\u2019t going to deny them any longer.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a little dicey in \u201922 to even go, so I think that was for the best, obviously,\u2019\u2019 said Team Canada superstar Nathan Mackinnon. \u201cIn \u201918, I can\u2019t remember why we didn\u2019t go, but we didn\u2019t. It was a long time coming. My rookie season (2013-14) we went, and obviously I wasn\u2019t going to make the team. It was kind of a tease in \u201922 and a lot of us are in our primes right now, so it\u2019s a good time to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
McDavid, Eichel, MacKinnon, Matthews \u2014 the cream of a generation that got robbed of Olympic opportunities.<\/p>\n
Sunday was a day to turn the page.<\/p>\n
\u201cEichs, Matthews, Matt Tkachuk and all those guys are 28, 29 now, so they (should be) starting their third Olympics by this point,\u201d said Team USA forward Jack Hughes. \u201cSo I\u2019m sure super excited to be a part of this and finally be here.\u201d<\/p>\n
The hard part, too, is that not everyone got to be here. Even though NHL players are back in the Olympics, some very good players didn\u2019t get the call. All of which isn\u2019t lost on all these first-time NHL Olympians now here in Milan.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very true. And you never know what people think about you,\u201d said Team USA goalie Connor Hellebuyck. \u201cSo you never know when your opportunity or your window closes. I\u2019m very grateful to be here today. I\u2019m going to soak it in and enjoy every single moment and give it my best.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s last year\u2019s Hart and Vezina Trophy winner, sounding like he wasn\u2019t sure this day would ever come.<\/p>\n
Dylan Larkin took a moment to absorb it in practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was skating around and looked over at Zach Werenski and seeing the Olympic rings on our helmets, it\u2019s just incredible,\u201d said the Team USA forward. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty cool. You dream about it. I know a lot of players, the big dogs in the league, were vocal about coming here. And we\u2019re here. That speaks a lot to the players stepping forward and wanting to have a say in it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Swiss center Nico Hischier\u2019s eyes lit up when asked to describe what it felt like to skate on the Olympic ice sheet Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cSpecial. I mean, for myself, it\u2019s my first Olympics,\u201d said Hischier. \u201cYou grow up watching these big events, Summer and Winter Olympics, it\u2019s only every four years. It\u2019s very cool to be experiencing this now. It took a little while, but the players are all very happy to be part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sweden\u2019s Mika Zibanejad hasn\u2019t had a lot to rejoice with his New York Rangers this year. Stepping into the ice here Sunday made all that go away.<\/p>\n
\u201cGreat, honestly. I don\u2019t have anything negative to say. I\u2019ve been just so stoked to be able to be part of Olympics,\u201d he said. \u201cI think it\u2019s bigger than maybe some hockey people think, and you may not realize how big it is when you start thinking about the athletes around that are working 4-8 years to get here and to get the chance to even crack the qualification to Olympics.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd for us to be able to be here, obviously a different situation for us now because it\u2019s been so long since the NHL players have been around, but amazing. I feel like a kid living my dream. It\u2019s going to be awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n
I feel like a kid living my dream.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s not just the players. Jon Cooper\u2019s face spoke volumes Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cHumbling,\u201d said Team Canada\u2019s head coach, who is in his first Olympics. \u201cYou walk into that Olympic Village for the first time and you\u2019re surrounded by the world\u2019s greatest athletes and to see them in a meal room or in the lounge or whatever and you\u2019re like, oh my God, that\u2019s whoever. I don\u2019t know, like I said, it\u2019s humbling to be there. It\u2019s eye-opening. I\u2019ve watched the Olympics my entire life. Now to actually be here and see it and see the passion \u2026 I don\u2019t know, it\u2019s super cool.\u201d<\/p>\n
And the thing is, it\u2019s not just surreal for the first-timers. Even two-time Olympic hockey champions get goosebumps. It\u2019s been 12 years for No. 87 between Olympics.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there\u2019s some days that it feels like 12 years and other days where it feels like yesterday,\u201d Team Canada captain Sidney Crosby said after practice Sunday, smiling ear to ear. \u201cIt\u2019s so great, though.There\u2019s been a lot of anticipation ever since we found we were going back to the Olympics. And then the naming of the team, just a lot of anticipation. It\u2019s just great to be with the guys and get out there and get to work and see the speed and try to get better here and become a team.\u201d<\/p>\n
His advice to to all the first-time Olympians on the team?<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you got to be open-minded and go with the flow,\u201d said the man who scored the Golden Goal in 2010. \u201cThere\u2019s always different things,\u00a0whether it\u2019s your routine or different things that come up, you just have to embrace the whole experience. It\u2019s a special one. Not only representing hockey but the \u2014 just the entire Team Canada and celebrate sports. There\u2019s expectations and there\u2019s pressure that comes with it, but it\u2019s about our group trying to be the best team we can. It\u2019s on all of us to help each other and that\u2019s what we\u2019ll try to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s really happening. What has the potential to be the greatest hockey tournament in the history of the game, based on the collection of talent assembled here in Milan, is finally here.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s take a moment to recognize how amazing that truly is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN \u2014 The world\u2019s No. 1 hockey player led Team Canada out for practice Sunday night. No one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,54125,4,2602],"class_list":{"0":"post-452161","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-mens-olympic-ice-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-olympics"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116041289841083176","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452161","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=452161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}