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<\/p>\nMILAN \u2013 This is actually the second Olympics that Matthew and Brady Tkachuk remember representing the United States.<\/p>\n
In these 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Games, the Mike Sullivan-described \u201cheart and soul\u201d of the U.S. Olympic team have combined for two goals and six assists in three victories, helping to lead the Americans into the quarterfinals Wednesday night against the winner of Tuesday\u2019s Sweden-Latvia game.<\/p>\n
But 20 years ago, Matthew and Brady were also in Italy for the 2006 Olympics, only 80 miles away in Torino. As 8- and 6-year-olds covered in red, white and blue, they often had American flags painted on their faces. They were running around the Olympic village, just like they are now.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot sure how we got into the Olympic village,\u201d Brady Tkachuk recalled, \u201cbut we somehow did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Matthew Tkachuk, almost 22 months older than Brady, remembers how it happened.<\/p>\n
His dad, U.S. hockey Hall of Famer Keith Tkachuk, was in his fourth and final Olympics. He got two passes for Matthew and Brady and took them to tour the village one day.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if you can even do that anymore,\u201d Matthew Tkachuk told The Athletic. \u201cWe buzzed around the whole village and just literally tried to take a picture with every single person we could that we knew of, whether it was hockey or anybody else. I remember we got one with Sasha Cohen, the figure skater. I don\u2019t know why I remember that. We went right up to speed skaters and skiers, bobsledders and lugers and curlers, and of course hockey players.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a really cool picture with (Alex) Ovechkin and (Evgeni) Malkin when they were like 19 or 20 years old. That\u2019s still hung up in both of our rooms back in St. Louis. I know we\u2019re in the Olympics, but that is probably my favorite memory I have of the Olympics. I actually don\u2019t even remember any of my dad\u2019s games. I remember being there and making signs and wearing our flag proudly, but the games, I don\u2019t even remember.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Ovi and Geno picture is the moment right there that stands out to me the most,\u201d Brady added.<\/p>\n
This time around, Matthew and Brady continue to go around the village and introduce themselves to every athlete, asking them who they are and what they do.<\/p>\n
There are figure skaters and speed skaters everywhere, and of course, hockey players.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, it brings you back,\u201d Matthew, rooming with Brady in what they\u2019ve dubbed \u201cClub Tkachuk,\u201d said. \u201cI never went to college, but it\u2019s like a college dorm experience and it\u2019s all of us on the same floor. Then we have the men\u2019s and women\u2019s team in the same building. We have a hangout area and then just every American athlete has their own separate lounge area and it\u2019s just been absolutely incredible so far. Trying to meet and say hi to every American athlete that I\u2019ve seen so far. I know a lot of them are competing and stuff, but we\u2019ll try to meet the rest of them for sure. They\u2019ve been amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n The Tkachuk family attended the Torino Winter Olympics in 2006 to watch Keith Tkachuk represent the U.S. in men\u2019s hockey. (Courtesy of the Tkachuk family)<\/p>\n
It has been a blast for the Tkachuks to get to know the talented women\u2019s national team, who will be going for their third all-time gold medal Thursday night against Canada.<\/p>\n
But there was just something special about that time running around Torino as kids.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t remember what events we went to, though,\u201d Brady said. \u201cBut it was a blast.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember that they had a really cool USA Hockey House that we\u2019d go to after I would say every game and hang out with all the families,\u201d said Matthew. \u201cAnd it was just a way to celebrate each game. That was really cool. I remember they had video games for the kids. We didn\u2019t get to see our dad a lot, but that was always a way to see him.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the biggest memories Matthew has was actually a scary one.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy uncle Kevin, my dad\u2019s brother, took me up north a few hours to ski,\u201d Matthew recalled. \u201cMy mom, Brady, maybe my grandpa stayed at the bottom. Well, me and my uncle got lost on the slopes and it took us three or four hours to find the base. There was no phone service or I don\u2019t even know if they had phones there, but I remember that was crazy.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut also while we were skiing, there was an event going on there, too. So I remember that was just a crazy moment like, \u2018Oh my God, we\u2019re lost, but now we kind of found where we are by skiing right next to a slalom event.\u2019 That was pretty insane.<\/p>\n
\u201cFinally, we found our way down. I remember being nervous that we were lost, not that I was going to die with my uncle on the mountain though. But thank God we found that Olympic event and basically wound up skiing down the mountain next to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fittingly, it was Brady, the Americans\u2019 best player at last year\u2019s 4 Nations Face-Off, who scored the first goal of this Olympic tournament for the Americans. Matthew assisted on it, but Brady skated away from him for the celly.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was honestly like, \u2018Are you really gonna celebrate away from me right now?\u2019\u201d Matthew said. \u201cThen I grabbed him. To assist on your brother\u2019s goal, the first goal, to be the first goal for our team. A memory that\u2019s gonna last a lifetime, that\u2019s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a pretty cool feeling scoring for your country,\u201d Brady said. \u201cYou get so much energy from this crowd and feel the support and it\u2019s truly been an amazing experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s well known how proud Matthew and Brady are to be American. It was instilled in them as kids watching their dad star for the United States in several international tournaments. Keith Tkachuk also has the second-most goals in NHL history for a U.S.-born player.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got some incredible support from people across the whole country. Probably all over the world out here supporting us,\u201d Matthew said. \u201cWe hear those USA chants. You can\u2019t ever explain the feeling that you feel on the ice or on the bench. It\u2019s like the most incredible thing you could ever imagine. That\u2019s why we do what we do.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s truly bigger than ourselves,\u201d added Brady. \u201cWe\u2019re playing for the flag.\u201d<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
\n Keith Tkachuk, pictured here with his three children in Torino, said he would give up his four Olympic experiences to see his boys with a gold medal around their necks. (Courtesy of the Tkachuk family)<\/p>\n
Sullivan said Matthew and Brady \u201cpersonify what it means to be an American, with their fierce competitive spirit. I thought they were the catalyst for our team becoming the team in that sense of the word (at the 4 Nations).\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a sense of pride that Matthew and Brady are a set of brothers striving for the Olympic gold medal that eluded their father. They live across the hall at the Village from the Hughes brothers, Quinn and Jack, two of their longtime best buddies.<\/p>\n
Keith says he\u2019d give up his four Olympic experiences to see his boys with a gold medal around their necks by late Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n
First things first: they have to get through the quarters.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be able to do this at this high a stage, I mean, nobody ever thought when they were young kids that something like this would be possible,\u201d Keith said. \u201cI\u2019m just so proud of the boys. They worked their butts off to get here to this point. And it\u2019s really fun to see them doing something they love to do, getting compensated really well and having a positive effect, both on and off the ice. And growing the game, especially for USA Hockey. I just look back at those days at the U.S. National Team Development Program and I just pinch myself how lucky it was for them to grow up in that environment.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully they get a chance to win a gold medal.\u201d<\/p>\n
And how cool would that be? Twenty years after two proud American children got to spend the 2006 Olympics with their dad so close to where they are now in Italy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho would have thought?\u201d said Matthew. \u201cA dream. It really is.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN \u2013 This is actually the second Olympics that Matthew and Brady Tkachuk remember representing the United States.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":460712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5118],"tags":[57,5,54125,161,38,5280,4,2602,25,84,162],"class_list":{"0":"post-460711","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-wild","8":"tag-florida-panthers","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-mens-olympic-ice-hockey","11":"tag-minnesota","12":"tag-minnesota-wild","13":"tag-minnesotawild","14":"tag-nhl","15":"tag-olympics","16":"tag-ottawa-senators","17":"tag-st-louis-blues","18":"tag-wild"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116085739612679680","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460711","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=460711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}