{"id":475023,"date":"2026-02-27T12:37:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T12:37:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/475023\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T12:37:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T12:37:18","slug":"olympic-hockey-birthday-celebrations-are-reminders-of-deep-ties-within-warriors-fabric","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/475023\/","title":{"rendered":"Olympic hockey, birthday celebrations are reminders of deep ties within Warriors\u2019 fabric"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 Like many Americans, Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr woke up on Sunday morning and was struck by the scenes that were coming across his screen from Italy. After Jack Hughes scored the golden goal<\/a> that lifted the Team USA men\u2019s hockey team to victory at the Milan Cortina Olympics, Kerr and millions of others were struck by not only the magnitude of the moment but also what happened as the group honored a fallen teammate.<\/p>\n

Several members of Team USA skated around the ice just after the game with the jersey of Johnny Gaudreau, the NHL star who likely would have been with them on the ice had it not been for a car crash that killed him and his brother Matthew in August 2024. After Team USA received their gold medals, several other teammates ventured into the crowd to get two of Gaudreau\u2019s children so that they could be part of the celebration and in the team picture. As Kerr, who led Team USA to gold in men\u2019s basketball at the Paris Olympics in 2024, talked about the scene Sunday, the emotion on his face was evident.<\/p>\n

\u201cIncredibly emotional,\u201d Kerr said. \u201cAnd then they\u2019re showing his parents in the stands. I knew the story, of course, but I didn\u2019t know his family would be at the game, and that was just unbelievably emotional.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were Warriors ties on the opposite bench as well. Kerr and several of his players were open about how happy<\/a> they were to watch Macklin Celebrini play for Team Canada. Celebrini\u2019s father, Rick, is the Warriors\u2019 vice president of player health and performance and has been with the organization since 2018. He left the Warriors a couple of weeks ago to be with the rest of his family in Italy. His fellow Warriors staffers got a kick out of each time the NBC cameras showed Rick in the stands with his family.<\/p>\n

In a season that has been filled with highs and lows on the floor, the outpouring of support for Celebrini and his family was a reminder of just how important \u2014 and how wide \u2014 those bonds can be for professional teams. More than many of their NBA counterparts, the Warriors go out of their way to celebrate the accomplishments and milestones of many within their extended family.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one of the fun parts of the job,\u201d Kerr said a day before the gold medal game. \u201cSeeing the families be a part of it. One of my great memories of my playing career was when my kids were able to be involved. To see D.J. Green (Draymond Green\u2019s son) as a ball boy, the other night Ean Horford (Al Horford\u2019s son) was on our bench. He\u2019s frequently at our facility shooting and rebounding for his dad. Honestly, it\u2019s one of the best parts of the job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Too often in professional sports, fans forget that their favorite teams are made up of human beings who go through ups and downs just like everybody else. There will always be more focus paid to the players and coaches because of the forward-facing nature of their job, but a slew of people behind the scenes become part of a team\u2019s larger family over the years.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s why a sellout crowd at Chase Center sang \u201cHappy Birthday\u201d to D.J. Green late in December when he turned 9 and then sang again when Ean Horford celebrated his 11th birthday on Sunday. It\u2019s why Ean\u2019s father, Al, beamed as the crowd serenaded his son. It\u2019s the same smile D.J.\u2019s dad, Draymond, had on his face when he watched the crowd sing to his son weeks earlier.<\/p>\n

Those extra details are what players remember and appreciate.<\/p>\n

\u201cVery special,\u201d Horford said of the gesture. \u201cI didn\u2019t know that that was gonna happen, and I think that it kinda got him by surprise, too. Usually, they kinda put a sign up there, and that\u2019s kinda it, but that was really special. I felt like he was embarrassed there just \u2019cause they kept putting him on the Jumbotron, but it was really neat. My family and I are pretty grateful for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stephen Curry and several of his teammates cheered from the bench as the birthday rendition came to a close on Sunday. It\u2019s sequences like these that provide the players and coaches the perspective that they need in the grind of a six-month, 82-game regular season. While there\u2019s never a guarantee that those extra gestures make a difference on the floor, the care that is shown to the families isn\u2019t lost on the players.<\/p>\n

Gary Payton II grew up in the spotlight as the son of Hall of Famer Gary Payton. He\u2019s been a member of the Warriors for most of the past six seasons and knows the organization and its fan base will go out of their way to support anyone connected to the family. He smiled while describing what it was like to see his teammates\u2019 sons get included in that.<\/p>\n

\u201cDray\u2019s like a staple here in the Bay for sure,\u201d Payton II said. \u201cHe was a part of the runs and everything, and so he\u2019s always gonna be a Bay legend. They welcomed Al and Al\u2019s family with open arms. It\u2019s just the type of people that we have in the Bay and the type of love that they give to their team and their people.\u201d<\/p>\n

A faction of the Warriors fan base is frustrated by how not only this season has played out, but how the last part of Curry\u2019s career is unfolding after the 2022 championship run. How the high draft picks haven\u2019t panned out the way the organization hoped they would. They\u2019ll wonder, if the culture was so strong, why would a player like Jonathan Kuminga want to leave? Why did the divorce between player and team get so messy?<\/p>\n

Just like any family, there will be disagreements in how certain arrangements unfold and how different events play out. But what Olympic hockey, birthday celebrations and everyday interactions are reminders of is just how deep the bonds within a team can go \u2014 and how memorable they can be.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we finish games, every game, win or lose, we open up the doors to the family room,\u201d Kerr said. \u201cAnd the kids come flooding in, and it\u2019s just awesome. I sit up in my office, I have a beer, and I look down, and I see these little pick-up games happening with our players\u2019 kids, coaches\u2019 kids, and people running around, players coming out hugging their kids. This is a special profession to be able to share with your kids, and memories for a lifetime, but also good perspective for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 Like many Americans, Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr woke up on Sunday morning and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[574,5],"class_list":{"0":"post-475023","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-golden-state-warriors","9":"tag-hockey"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116142633500629497","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475023","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=475023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}