{"id":467016,"date":"2026-02-22T17:27:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T17:27:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/467016\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T17:27:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T17:27:18","slug":"canada-players-carry-hopes-dreams-of-an-entire-nation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/467016\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada players carry hopes, dreams of an entire nation"},"content":{"rendered":"

MILAN \u2014 Tom Wilson remembers being a kid in school when everything would shut down.<\/p>\n

They\u2019d wheel in those big, boxy TVs, put the antenna up to get a signal. <\/p>\n

Or maybe he\u2019d be at the rink, attending a watch party. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s where he was in 2010, at age 15, when Sidney Crosby scored the golden goal against Team USA. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s what it\u2019s like in Canada when the men\u2019s hockey team plays at the Olympics.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that\u2019s why we\u2019re here,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cWe\u2019re here for our country. We\u2019re here to try and make them proud. I think if you ask any single guy in that room, it\u2019s way bigger than us. All I can do, all we can do at this point, is just leave it out there for our country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Canada, as you well know, is the world\u2019s preeminent hockey superpower. <\/p>\n

It has won damn-near every best-on-best tournament in history, the last loss coming at the 2006 Torino Games. <\/p>\n

Even with Team USA bringing a historically good roster to Milan, and even after splitting two games with the Americans last year, finishing in second after Sunday\u2019s gold medal game<\/a> would be something like a national crisis.<\/p>\n

\"ConnorConnor McDavid keeps an eye on things during Canada\u2019s Olympic men\u2019s hockey semifinal victory over Finland on Feb. 20, 2026 AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cI think obviously as Canadians we take a lot of pride in this sport,\u201d Connor McDavid said. \u201cAnd the guys that have come before us have done a great job representing the country. I think we\u2019ve played good hockey and hopefully put ourselves in a good spot to do the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

The country will pretty much shut down on Sunday morning. <\/p>\n

Bars and restaurants in Ontario have been given license to serve alcohol starting at 6 a.m. <\/p>\n

Every TV in the nation will be tuned in.<\/p>\n

\"MacklinMacklin Celebrini, age 19, was just three years old when Sidney Crosby scored the \u201cgolden goal\u201d in overtime against Team USA in the men\u2019s hockey final at the 2010 Vancouver Games. REUTERS<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know there\u2019s 40 million people at home on the edge of their seat waiting for this to happen,\u201d coach Jon Cooper said.<\/p>\n

Even Macklin Celebrini, the youngest player on the team at 19, can feel the weight of history on his shoulders. <\/p>\n

He was too young to have watched the 2010 Vancouver Games live, just 3 years old when the Olympics came to his home city. <\/p>\n

Still, he\u2019s watched that USA-Canada final plenty over the years. <\/p>\n

Not the highlights \u2014 the whole game.<\/p>\n

How many times?<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, ever since it happened, a lot,\u201d Celebrini said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN \u2014 Tom Wilson remembers being a kid in school when everything would shut down. They\u2019d wheel in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[19,155,5,2602,43,280,422],"class_list":{"0":"post-467016","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-canada","9":"tag-connor-mcdavid","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-olympics","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-tom-wilson","14":"tag-usa-hockey"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116115462918423146","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467016","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=467016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}