Starting with three fights in the first nine seconds and ending with a celebration and a spot in the 4 Nations Face-Off final, the US on Saturday delivered exactly what Matthew Tkachuk hoped for by beating Canada.
“We needed to send a message,” Tkachuk said. “The message we wanted to send is ‘It’s our time.’”
Tkachuk fought Brandon Hagel off the opening faceoff, brother Brady tussled with Sam Bennett the next time the puck dropped, J.T. Miller dropped the gloves with Colton Parayko next and the Americans followed those fisticuffs with a 3-1 victory over their biggest rival.
Photo: AFP
“That was one of the best experiences of my life — just an unbelievable hockey game,” said Dylan Larkin, who scored the go-ahead goal in the second period. “The Tkachuk brothers and Millsy, what a start, and credit to those guys for answering the bell. And the crowd, just a great night for our sport and a great night for this rivalry.”
Played at a blistering pace with physicality throughout, the most anticipated game of 4 Nations round-robin play did not disappoint, from the fisticuffs off the opening faceoff to big hits from Charlie McAvoy on Canadian star Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid and more than a few vital saves by Connor Hellebuyck among his 24.
The US showed it could keep up with Canada’s speed, skill and talent in the first international tournament with the NHL’s best players in nearly a decade.
Photo: AFP
“What an incredible hockey game,” US coach Mike Sullivan said.
It all unfolded against the backdrop of uneasy tensions between the North American neighbors and longtime allies, with many fans in the sellout crowd of 21,105 at Bell Centre loudly booing throughout the pregame rendition of the US anthem. That spilled onto the ice as soon as the puck was dropped, with Matthew Tkachuk asking Brandon Hagel to drop the gloves and the fourth-line Canada winger engaging in the fight two seconds in.
Brother Brady Tkachuk did the same with Bennett the moment the puck was dropped on the ensuing faceoff three seconds in. Miller cross-checked Parayko and the two went at it to make it a trio of bouts in the early going.
The idea came from a group chat involving the Tkachuk brothers and Miller.
Canada coach Jon Cooper called the first minute purely “mayhem.”
“It was, I guess, 10 years of no international hockey exhaled in a minute and a half,” Cooper said.
Former European champions Celtic exited the UEFA Champions League in the qualifiers after a 3-2 penalty shoot-out defeat at Kazakhstan’s Kairat Almaty on Tuesday, following two goalless legs in the playoff tie. Kairat are to compete in the competition proper for the first time, while Norway’s Bodo/Glimt and Cyprus’s Pafos also secured debut appearances after coming through the playoffs. Celtic’s night ended in disappointment as they missed three penalties in the shoot-out, Daizen Maeda failing with the decisive spot-kick. The slugfest of a match went into extra-time with neither side finding the net and few overall chances, echoing the first
Rangers on Wednesday bowed out of the UEFA Champions League playoffs with a humiliating 6-0 defeat at the hands of Club Brugge which piles further pressure on head coach Russell Martin, while SL Benfica secured a place in the competition proper at the expense of Jose Mourinho’s Fenerbahce. The Glasgow giants traveled to Belgium right up against it after losing 3-1 at home in last week’s first leg, when they conceded three times in the opening 20 minutes. They never looked like turning the tie around as Club Brugge took the lead inside five minutes at the Jan Breydelstadion through Nicolo Tresoldi
Australian Alex de Minaur reached the second week of the US Open for the third year in a row with little fanfare on Saturday and said he intended to keep winning until the tournament organizers were forced to give him better billing. Despite being the eighth seed and a quarter-finalist last year at Flushing Meadows, De Minaur’s third-round match against German Daniel Altmaier was scheduled for Court 17 — the smallest of the four stadium venues in the precinct. “It is a little bit of a headscratcher for me. I’m not gonna lie,” he told reporters after progressing 6-7 (9/7), 6-3, 6-4,
Noah Lyles on Thursday warmed up for the upcoming athletics world championships by chasing down Olympic champion Letsile Tebogo to win the 200m at the Diamond League final. Lyles trailed Tebogo at the start, but gradually erased the deficit over the final 100m and pipped the Botswana sprinter to the line by centimeters. Lyles, the Olympic 100m champion and reigning world champion in both the 100m and 200m, clocked 19.74 seconds in a slight headwind. Tebogo was 0.02 seconds behind. It was Lyles’ sixth Diamond League title, a record for track athletes. “Six, that’s a big number,” Lyles said. “Shoot, that’s another record on
RSS