MILAN \u2014 One cannot overstate the stakes in Sunday\u2019s Olympic men\u2019s hockey gold medal game.<\/p>\n
It has the chance to be the most-watched game in the sport\u2019s entire history, for one.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is as good as it gets. And a rivalry that\u2019s as good as it gets. There will be not one TV without this game on in the United States and Canada,\u2019\u2019 American forward Matthew Tkachuk said Friday night after his team booked its ticket to the gold medal game.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the matchup the NHL dreamed about when it decided to end a 12-year absence from Olympic play.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the final that we wanted and the team that we wanted to play,\u2019\u2019 said Team USA forward Matt Boldy. \u201cIt\u2019s exciting for the fans and for hockey and everything like that.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Added Team USA center Dylan Larkin: \u201cI think this, it\u2019s what everyone wanted, is this matchup in the gold medal game.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
A Team USA victory would be its most important since the 1996 World Cup of Hockey win over Canada and its first Olympic gold since the Miracle on Ice team. A win Sunday could have that same impact for years to come.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m excited to see the matchup with USA and Canada,\u2019\u2019 Ryan Miller, whose outstanding 2010 Olympic tournament ended with the Golden Goal against him in Vancouver, told The Athletic on Friday night. \u201cObviously would love to see the Americans take the next step. It has been a consistent push over the last 12 years between World Jr., U18s and World Championships where the U.S. has grabbed titles. I think they have grown a generation of players that are at least on par with Canada and are ready to overtake them. It\u2019s their moment. Hoping to see them get the job done.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
A Team Canada victory keeps the world\u2019s most hockey-obsessed nation on top of the hockey summit at a time when their rivals south of the border have never looked more threatening as far as hockey world supremacy.<\/p>\n
A year after the 4 Nations Face-Off appetizer event surprisingly captured the attention of so many, the Canada-U.S. championship game layered with a tense political backdrop, imagine now what that may feel like in the hours leading up to puck drop Sunday, as relations between the two nations remain frayed thanks to a U.S. president who continues to verbally question Canada\u2019s sovereignty. And there\u2019s a chance Donald Trump will be at Sunday\u2019s game, to boot.<\/p>\n
So yeah, this isn\u2019t just a hockey game Sunday. This is one of the biggest moments in the sport\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a game where everybody is going to be watching and tuning in. That\u2019s exciting for everybody involved, players, countries, all the people back home, it\u2019s going to be a really special moment, just to have an opportunity to achieve your childhood dream, nothing better than that,\u2019\u2019 said Team USA star forward Brady Tkachuk.<\/p>\n
A year ago, Tom Wilson was sitting on his couch watching the 4 Nations championship game between Canada and the U.S. Not to mention the round-robin game between both teams a week prior to that, which featured three fights in nine seconds to open the game.<\/p>\n
So yeah, he was grinning from ear to ear as the question was being asked Friday night, the idea of being part of a Canada-USA grudge match for Olympic gold with the whole world watching.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s just say I\u2019d be excited to play in that game,\u2019\u2019 smiled the rugged Team Canada winger. \u201cIt\u2019s one of the best rivalries in sports, especially in hockey. \u2026 It\u2019s going to be a big boy game. We\u2019ll see what happens.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Canada-USA on this stage? Come on.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat would obviously be great for hockey, there would be a lot of viewers,\u2019\u2019 Team Canada defenseman Drew Doughty said after the 3-2 semifinal win over Finland. \u201cBut we don\u2019t care who we play.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Yeah, not buying that for one second. Every single returning player from both Team Canada and Team USA from 4 Nations had this exact matchup in mind for these Olympics.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, you can\u2019t really script it any better than that,\u2019\u2019 said Brady Tkachuk. \u201cAll we cared about is putting ourselves in that position, didn\u2019t really matter who we were going to play. But now that it\u2019s all set in stone, everything happens for a reason.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
For Team Canada, there\u2019s also the emotion of seeing its leader, Sidney Crosby, injured in this tournament. Team Canada hasn\u2019t ruled out Crosby for the gold medal game.<\/p>\n
There was extra motivation Friday from Team Canada players wanting to make sure they at least gave him that chance.<\/p>\n
\u201cA guy that you want to show up for, and with what he\u2019s done for the game, for our team, for all of Canada, we want to show up for him and give him another opportunity,\u2019\u2019 said fellow Nova Scotian Brad Marchand. \u201cBut you want to do it for every single guy in that room and every person that helped you get to this point, and for the entirety of Canada. But with what\u2019s going on with Sid, he\u2019s definitely a big rallying point.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wilson, a longtime opponent of Crosby\u2019s in that Pittsburgh-Washington rivalry back home, tried to put into perspective what their leader meant to that group.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, Sid, it\u2019s clich\u00e9, but Sid is one of those guys that every guy that laces up their skates wanted to make him proud,\u2019\u2019 he said. \u201cYou know he\u2019s watching. You want to give it all for him, and he\u2019s one of the highest respected players in the game of hockey. So when he\u2019s leading the way for us, and he can\u2019t go tonight, every single guy was trying to play to the best of their ability for him, and you know, hopefully moving on here, he gets another shot at playing. And he was down there with us, helping us through everything in the room. And just a special guy, and I\u2019m excited to go see him now.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Just imagine for a moment if Crosby somehow finds a way to lace them up Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be incredible,\u2019\u2019 said Team Canada winger Seth Jarvis. \u201cYou can\u2019t underestimate how powerful he is in our locker room, just to have him around the guys \u2014 and what he does on the ice is pretty self-explanatory. Just to have a guy like that potentially in the lineup for the gold medal game would be massive.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a matchup pitting two very equal rosters, the Crosby leadership factor is one Team USA can\u2019t rival.<\/p>\n
Having said that, Team USA is rolling big time. They had their most dominant game of the tournament Friday night and are hitting on all cylinders.<\/p>\n
\u201cReally excited,\u2019\u2019 said Team USA star center Jack Eichel. \u201cThe two best teams in the tournament right now, right? Both teams are undefeated. We have an opportunity to go win a gold medal and do something special. It\u2019s a great chance for our group. Really excited about how we\u2019re playing and about the opportunity we have on Sunday.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Without Crosby, Team Canada rallied back from a 3-2 deficit late in the third period to beat the Czech Republic in the quarterfinals, and again Friday night, erased a 2-0 hole against Finland.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve been battle-tested ahead of their biggest challenge yet in Team USA.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re a resilient group,\u2019\u2019 said Team Canada winger Mitch Marner. \u201cWe kept pushing. We\u2019re not going to back away from a challenge.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s fun,\u2019\u2019 added Team Canada star defenseman Cale Makar. \u201cWhen you\u2019ve got a team like this that\u2019s got so many leaders on it and everybody\u2019s been through scenarios like this before, regardless of what team they\u2019re playing for, it\u2019s amazing to see all the veterans in the room and how positive everybody is. The talk just never really stops. I think everybody was honestly more comfortable in that 2-0 deficit tonight than when we went down obviously 3-2 the last game or 1-0. We\u2019re just growing as a team and hopefully getting better every day and I felt we did that tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
For an entire generation of NHL stars waiting more than a decade to live out their Olympic dreams, two teams have a shot at gold Sunday.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s surreal for them.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s pretty special, it\u2019s something you dream of as a kid,\u2019\u2019 said Marner.<\/p>\n
For Team USA, it\u2019s a chance to make an impact on the game in America in a dramatic way.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 1980 team, the 1996 World Cup, it grew the game so much,\u2019\u2019 said Brady Tkachuk. \u201cIt was great for our generation, we have an opportunity to grow the game, and one, make it a better sport for a future generation. So I\u2019m really looking forward to it.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Eichel pondered that same question, understanding what the impact a win would have Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah it would be huge,\u2019\u2019 he said. \u201cFor us, the group of guys that\u2019s in that locker room, a lot of us came up in the ranks together, we have a lot of history together, whether it\u2019s at the national program, or through world junior tournaments and whatnot. We all take a lot of pride in wearing the sweater and what that means and representing USA Hockey and being that certain new wave of players representing our country. To be here at the Olympics is such an honour. Yeah, we understand the magnitude of it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a minute since USA Hockey won a tournament like this,\u2019\u2019 added Eichel. \u201cSo, we\u2019re going to do anything we can to change that.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN \u2014 One cannot overstate the stakes in Sunday\u2019s Olympic men\u2019s hockey gold medal game. It has the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,54125,4,2602,177],"class_list":["post-465511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-hockey","tag-mens-olympic-ice-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-olympics","tag-opinion"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116107534962013422","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465511","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=465511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}