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\n Professional hockey players who normally play together in the NHL will compete against each other Sunday as Team USA takes on Canada for Olympic gold in Milan. Nearly 150 NHL players participated in the Olympics for the first time since 2014, with teammates now finding themselves on opposite sides of the ice.\n <\/p>\n
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Professional hockey teammates will transform into Olympic adversaries Sunday when Team USA battles Canada for gold in what promises to be a championship showdown that NHL fans have been dreaming about.<\/p>\n
Close to 150 NHL players traveled to Milan to compete in these Winter Games, marking the premier league\u2019s first Olympic participation since 2014. Now 50 players remain in contention for gold as this historic hockey rivalry takes center stage once again.<\/p>\n
Canada\u2019s Sam Reinhart, who plays alongside Team USA\u2019s Matthew Tkachuk on the Florida Panthers, acknowledged the challenge ahead. \u201cIt makes it harder,\u201d Reinhart explained. \u201cYou know how competitive they are, you know how nice it is to have them on your team when the games get the tightest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Every single NHL franchise had representation among the four semifinal teams, which also featured Finland and Slovakia, creating exactly the type of star-studded tournament the league envisioned when announcing player participation two years ago.<\/p>\n
Nathan MacKinnon, the NHL\u2019s leading goal scorer, says temporarily setting aside professional loyalties hasn\u2019t been difficult in Milan. The Canadian star will face his Colorado Avalanche teammate Brock Nelson on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have new teammates right now,\u201d MacKinnon stated. \u201cNew teammates, new brothers, in this short amount of time we\u2019ve become really close.\u201d<\/p>\n
The NHL entered the Milano Cortina Games with strong momentum, as ESPN and ABC viewership climbed 39% compared to last year during the season\u2019s first four months, helped by marquee players and the television hockey hit \u201cHeated Rivalry.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before men\u2019s competition even started, Olympic officials expressed hopes that elite North American league players would become regular Olympic participants in future Games.<\/p>\n
This championship matchup between longtime rivals \u2013 predicted by both betting experts and casual observers \u2013 should elevate excitement even higher, as the Americans pursue their third Olympic gold while Canada seeks their tenth men\u2019s tournament title.<\/p>\n
Team USA\u2019s Jack Eichel will see several Vegas Golden Knights teammates wearing Canadian jerseys, including Mitch Marner, Mark Stone, and Shea Theodore. \u201cWe\u2019re all competitors and we want to win,\u201d Eichel said. \u201cWe can go back to being teammates after the game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Professional hockey players who normally play together in the NHL will compete against each other Sunday as Team…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[56123,56124,56117,56125,56119,56120,56118,56121,5,4,56122],"class_list":{"0":"post-465200","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-102-3","9":"tag-102-3fm","10":"tag-fine-day","11":"tag-fine-day-102-3","12":"tag-fine-day-fm","13":"tag-fine-day-media","14":"tag-fine-day-radio","15":"tag-have-a-fine-day","16":"tag-hockey","17":"tag-nhl","18":"tag-weller-radio"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116105956314374493","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465200","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=465200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}