With NHL stars back in the Winter Olympics for the first time in 12 years, organizers of the Milan-Cortina hockey tournament have seemingly done everything they can to make the players feel at home.
A horn blast marks goals and the end of each period, an NHL tradition since the 1970s; foreboding organ music plays whenever a player is banished to the penalty box; and the songs used during breaks in play lean heavily toward American artists such as Dean Martin, Neil Diamond and The Black Eyed Peas.
They even brought in Kings’ organist Dieter Ruehle to complete the ambience. So it should be no surprise that the U.S. and Canada, whose rosters include only NHL players, have been the most comfortable in that environment, emerging from the three-game group stage Sunday as the tournament’s only unbeaten teams.
Canada blitzed France 10-2 behind two goals from the San Jose Sharks’ Macklin Celebrini to earn the top seed into Wednesday’s quarterfinals while the U.S beat Germany 5-1 to grab the second seed.
The Americans got two goals and an assist from Toronto Maple Leafs’ captain Auston Matthews and goals from Zach Werenski, Brock Faber and Tage Thompson in its win. The U.S. have scored at least five goals in each of its three games.
“It's kind of been familiar to an NHL-style environment, but with the pride of country,” said Boston Bruins defenseman Charlie McAvoy. “So it's been a blast.
“The environment that they created here, I think they did an awesome job.”
Ottawa Senators defenseman Jake Sanderson, who was still in college during the 2022 Olympics, played for the U.S. in front of an empty arena in the COVID-marred tournament in Beijing, where there was no environment. These Games are better, he said.
“The crowd's a little bit different than in NHL,” he said. “It's a little more rowdy, maybe that's just the European way. But it's amazing seeing the flags. Obviously, a lot of American flags, but flags from all over the world.”
McAvoy and Sanderson are two of 147 NHL players at the Milan-Cortina Games. All 32 teams sent at least one player and every country in the tournament, save host Italy, has an NHL player on its roster.
Italy, not surprising, lost all three of its first-round games, getting outscored 19-4.
NHL players were held out of the 2018 Olympics after the IOC announced it would no longer cover player-related costs such as insurance, travel and accommodations, and they missed the 2022 Games after a COVID-19 outbreak scrambled the league’s schedule, forcing it to withdraw its players from the Olympics six weeks before they were to leave.
In their absence, countries fielded teams of college players or professionals from lower-tier leagues while many NHL players figured their Olympic dreams would never be realized.
“We missed out on a couple. So I think it kind of went to the back of everyone's mind,” said Kings goaltender Darcy Kuemper, who is playing in his first Olympics for Canada. “But then they announced that we're going to this one. I think everyone got really excited.”
“I dreamed about it growing up, like every other kid,” he continued. “Whenever we were playing mini-sticks or street hockey or on the outdoor rink, you were always playing for the Stanley Cup or playing for Olympic gold.”
Kuemper has already won a Stanley Cup. A title in Milan would complete the set.
“The two greatest honors in hockey,” he said. “Winning the Stanley Cup and winning Olympic gold.”
Canada will probably have to get by the U.S. to get Kuemper his medal and the U.S. looked beatable for most of a sloppy first period Sunday, one that saw two defensemen collide on a power play, knocking one another to the ice. Later in the period forward Jack Hughes tumbled to the ice untouched.
The Americans finally found their stride, going ahead to stay when Werenski, a defenseman with the Columbus Blue Jackets, took a pass from Matthews in the center of the right circle, stepped up and drilled a wrister past German goalie Maximilian Franzreb nine seconds before the first intermission.
Read more:Brock Nelson lives up to his family's Olympic hockey legacy in U.S. rout of Latvia
Matthews doubled the advantage 3:25 into the second period, poking the rebound of a Quinn Hughes’ shot by Franzreb for his second power-play goal of the Olympics. Faber, who plays in the NHL with the Minnesota Wild, made it 3-0 with less than 2:30 left in the second period, playing the puck off the boards near the blue line and flicking it on goal where Eichel got a stick up in front of Franzreb, distracting the goalie as he reached up unsuccessfully to glove the puck.
Thompson, of the Buffalo Sabres, and Matthews closed out the scoring for the U.S. with goals less than five minutes apart into the final period. Tim Stutzle of the Ottawa Senators finally got Germany on the board with his fourth of the Olympics with less than nine minutes to play.
Now for the U.S. it’s on to the quarterfinals, which is the Olympic version of the NHL playoffs.
“We'd be idiots to think anything other than the game in front of us,” McAvoy said when asked about facing Canada in the final. “We've said from the beginning ‘every single game, every single day.’ It’s just about winning one hockey game.
“We were able to accomplish our goal, get two wins, win the group. That was our goal coming into this and now we get some added some added rest, which is huge.”
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.