MILAN (AP) \u2014 Charlie McAvoy doesn\u2019t have any brothers. In his family, there were only sisters, so he can\u2019t truly understand what it would be like to play on a global stage with a brother as a teammate.<\/p>\n
He does know this much: He\u2019s a little envious right now of U.S. teammates Matthew Tkachuk, Brady Tkachuk, Jack Hughes and Quinn Hughes, a foursome about to make this a brotherly Olympics in Milan.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t imagine anything cooler in the world,\u201d McAvoy said.<\/p>\n
Neither can the Tkachuk family. Neither can the Hughes family.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not unprecedented, brothers being teammates at the Olympics, but it is rare \u2014 and as if chasing what would be the first gold medal for the U.S. men since the \u201cMiracle on Ice\u201d in 1980 wasn\u2019t special enough for the next couple of weeks, it\u2019s a chance for those four players to do so alongside a sibling.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was a dream of ours at a young age,\u201d said Matthew Tkachuk, forward for the back-to-back Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers and the player probably most likely to be the fireplug for the U.S. in Milan. \u201cTo be able to both live out our dream together, it\u2019s kind of like a whole family accomplishment really. And then if we can ultimately come home with the main goal of winning a gold medal, it\u2019ll be an absolute dream come true for the whole entire family.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dreaming, sure, but the first night there wasn\u2019t much time for sleeping. The Tkachuk and the Hughes brothers are roommates in the Olympic village, reminding Quinn of the time he and Jack shared lake house bunk beds growing up.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were throwing the phones at each other all night showing each other the cool videos and pictures and stuff that happened during the day,\u201d Matthew said. \u201cIt\u2019s really cool we get to share the experience with each other. Like 24\/7, we\u2019re with each other right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tkachuk brothers share more laughs than sleep on night one in Olympic village Matthew Tkachuk discusses rooming with his brother Brady and explains why they were just laughing the whole night after some rearranging of their room. <\/p>\n
The Tkachuk brothers and the Hughes brothers all have a ton in common.<\/p>\n
Each set of brothers has a father who reached the highest level of hockey \u2014 Keith Tkachuk is a four-time Olympian who, among American players, ranks second in NHL history in goals, sixth in points and fourth in penalty minutes; Jim Hughes was a longtime executive for the Toronto Maple Leafs. All four of the brothers were first-round draft picks, all of them going in the top seven selections overall.<\/p>\n
And they\u2019ve worn \u201cUSA\u201d across the chests while their brother was on the same roster before.<\/p>\n
But not on this stage. The Tkachuks were teammates at the 4 Nations Face-Off last year, and the Hugheses would have been had Quinn not gotten injured before the event.<\/p>\n
Jack had two different stints of missing time because of injuries in recent months that endangered he and Quinn both being on the roster.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe one with the hand was a freak one and he just wanted to be healthy and wanted to be at his best,\u201d Quinn said. \u201cI mean, 4 Nations is one thing, but the Olympics is the Olympics. And, yeah, it was frustrating for me to miss it last year. And I think I would know what that felt like a little bit. But for me, I\u2019m just thankful to be here this year and have more gratitude.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brotherly ties have been part of special USA Hockey Olympic runs in the past.<\/p>\n
Joe and Larry McCormick played together when the U.S. won silver in 1920. There were two sets of brothers on the 1960 team that won gold at Squaw Valley, California; Roger and Bill Christian, along with Bill and Bob Cleary. The Christians played together on the Olympic team again in 1964, when David and Herb Brooks (the one and same who would coach the 1980 team to gold) were another brother duo on that squad that finished fifth at Innsbruck, Austria. Mark and Scott Fusco were together on the 1984 Sarajevo Games team. Derian and Kevin Hatcher were teammates in 1998 in Nagano.<\/p>\n
There have been other instances such as brothers playing in different years, cousins on the same team, fathers and sons in different Olympic generations, that sort of thing. Coach Mike Sullivan, McAvoy\u2019s father in-law, believes there\u2019s a tangible benefit to having brothers on the same team.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe brothers is next level familiarity,\u201d Sullivan said. \u201cAny time you can add that element to your team, it can only help. … It helps us become a team even more.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Olympics are special for anyone, and for those families, this one surely carries even more meaning.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy father played in four Olympics,\u201d Matthew Tkachuk said. \u201cAnd he\u2019d give all four of them up if it meant we can come home from this one with a gold medal.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN (AP) \u2014 Charlie McAvoy doesn\u2019t have any brothers. In his family, there were only sisters, so he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[4759,5,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-454972","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116054628048086947","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454972","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=454972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}