Throughout the Winter Olympics, Boston Bruins defenseman Charlie McAvoy has given readers of The Athletic\u00a0an inside look at Team USA.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At 28 years old, McAvoy, a former Boston University standout and three-time gold medalist in international tournaments, is in his ninth full NHL season. The top-pair defenseman to the right of Quinn Hughes is one of Auston Matthews\u2019 two alternate captains at the Olympics, with Matthew Tkachuk the other.<\/p>\n
His diaries have been edited for clarity and length, as told to senior writer Michael Russo. His first can be found here<\/a>, his second can be found here<\/a>, his third can be found here<\/a> and his fourth can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Now, in advance of the United States\u2019 gold medal showdown Sunday with Canada, here\u2019s McAvoy\u2019s fifth and final diary entry, and for full disclosure, this one wasn\u2019t exclusive to The Athletic.<\/p>\n MILAN \u2014 The excitement is through the roof for this group. It was good today to have a chance to come out here and just get a little sweat in, get the blood flowing, stay active, stay moving. Everybody\u2019s just ready to go. We\u2019re so jacked up in there. It\u2019s just the chance to make a dream come true tomorrow.<\/p>\n I think you try and just reflect back on some of the big games you had in your life (in order to not get overwhelmed by the burden). I know personally I have a few that I can pull from, how you try and prepare for them. At the end of the day when the puck drops, it\u2019s just hockey. Obviously, the result and what we\u2019re playing for is different, but the game is still the same.<\/p>\n So I think it\u2019s important to remember that, and then just keep your emotions in check.<\/p>\n We\u2019re thrilled for the opportunity that we\u2019ve given ourselves. That\u2019s the biggest thing right now. We\u2019re a great hockey team. They\u2019re a great hockey team. It\u2019s gonna be a heck of a game.<\/p>\n Yesterday, I was taking some time to think about (how this is the end after such a long buildup). Like, even getting here, I remember that first day being like, \u201cI\u2019m gonna be here a while.\u201d And then you start playing. And then that first three-in-four (games), and then, boom, the group stage is done. Quarters were done. Now the semis are done. It happened very quickly when we started playing once you were on the ice most days, staying busy. So it really feels like it flew by. Can\u2019t believe that tomorrow\u2019s gonna be the end of it.<\/p>\n We\u2019re gonna be together (until game time). We\u2019re leaning on each other, and we\u2019re sharing this journey together. Meal after this. And I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll spend a ton of time tonight and just getting excited. But the sentiment\u2019s the same for everybody. We\u2019re just absolutely thrilled for the opportunity that we\u2019ve given ourselves.<\/p>\n You\u2019ve dreamt about this since you\u2019re a kid, since the first time you watched \u201cMiracle.\u201d<\/p>\n I think it\u2019s gratifying (to get Canada). You want to be the best, you gotta beat the best, right? That\u2019s the old adage. So that\u2019s what this has afforded us: this opportunity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Throughout the Winter Olympics, Boston Bruins defenseman Charlie McAvoy has given readers of The Athletic\u00a0an inside look at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":466267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5099],"tags":[154,95,5132,530,5,54125,4,2602],"class_list":{"0":"post-466266","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-bruins","8":"tag-boston","9":"tag-boston-bruins","10":"tag-bostonbruins","11":"tag-bruins","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-mens-olympic-ice-hockey","14":"tag-nhl","15":"tag-olympics"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116111333318105477","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466266","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=466266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}