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A couple of years back, when the NHL announced that its players would return to Olympic competition for the first time in over a decade and participate in the 2026 and 2030 Games, the Tkachuk family group chat lit up. Matthew Tkachuk, now 28, was in his second year as a forward for the Florida Panthers: his team has since won back-to-back Stanley Cup championships. Younger brother Brady, 26, is a four-time NHL All-Star now in his eighth season with the Ottawa Senators. Their father, Keith Tkachuk, played 18 seasons in the NHL and represented the United States at four Olympics.
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The Tkachuks are a confident crew, and both Matthew and Brady knew they were solid bets to make their Olympic debuts in Milan. “We were so jacked,” Matthew tells TIME during a joint video interview with his brother. “All right, it’s on. No offense, I don’t really remember much of anything about the last two Olympics without NHLers. I don’t mean that to be a diss on anybody. But this is the right thing to do.”
NHL players did not participate in the 2018 Olympics in South Korea (owners were growing tired of the disruption to the league’s regular season) or the 2022 Games in China (the COVID pandemic was already wreaking havoc on the NHL schedule); their return to the Olympic rekindles the kind of best-on-best global competition sports fans are accustomed to seeing in sports like basketball at the Summer Games or soccer at the World Cup. What’s more, these Games arrive at an ideal moment for hockey, especially for supporters of the United States and Canada. The inaugural 4 Nations Face-Off tournament, which the NHL and the NHL Players’ Association debuted in February 2025 as a temporary replacement for its annual All-Star Game, was a smashing success, in large part thanks to heated rivalry games between the two North American neighbors at a time when U.S. President Donald Trump was saber-rattling Canada, referring to the country as a potential…
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