Canada’s Nathan MacKinnon just isn’t on the Olympics to get pleasure from himself

MILAN — For any first-time Olympic athlete, there’s a stability to strike between peak efficiency and appreciating the expertise.

Most athletes work from early childhood for the chance to compete on a stage that solely comes as soon as each 4 years. When that second lastly arrives, soaking all of it in and having fun with the reward for all that work could be a pure counterpart to the aggressive portion of the Olympic expertise.

It would solely be human.

Nathan MacKinnon just isn’t a typical human.

The Colorado Avalanche star centre and 4 Nations Face-Off MVP for Team Canada is attending his first Olympics. He has labored practically his total life for this, and he’s lastly right here at age 30.

And his response to his first expertise in an Olympic athletes’ village, a spotlight for nearly anybody as a result of they get to fulfill different athletes from different sports activities, summarized MacKinnon’s skewed work-life stability completely.

“We’ve talked to some other athletes,” MacKinnon stated after observe Monday. “But to be honest, I just want to win gold here. It’s fun to get to know people, but at the end of the day, we’re just trying to win.”

OK, so not a complete lot of mingling for MacKinnon, apparently. The Olympic expertise to him, primarily, is all in regards to the prime step of the medal podium.

“I want to enjoy myself, but I’m not here to enjoy myself,” he stated. “I’m going to do everything I can to play well, and hopefully it’s enough and hopefully I can contribute.”

Don’t it’s important to take this all in?

“No,” he responded.

It’s not that MacKinnon isn’t having fun with himself; it’s simply that his model of enjoyable just isn’t the identical as others. For him, an Olympic gold medal could be enjoyable. Becoming a member of the triple gold membership, reserved for gamers who’ve gained the Stanley Cup, the World Championships and the Olympics, could be enjoyable.

Going to look at pace skating wouldn’t.

“Like, I’m loving hanging out with the guys, I’m loving talking, I’m loving practising,” MacKinnon stated. “But in terms of going to 10 events a day and going for dinner in Milan, I don’t think anyone’s going to do that. That’s what I mean in terms of enjoying myself. But I’m loving being with the guys. This is a dream for me. I’m sitting next to Sid in the dressing room. At 10 years old, how cool would that be?”

“Sid,” after all, is Team Canada captain Sidney Crosby, a fellow native of Cole Harbour, N.S., and MacKinnon’s mentor, summer season coaching companion and shut buddy. Just after MacKinnon’s tenth birthday, Crosby started his rookie NHL season. And now, twenty years later, they’re sitting subsequent to one another in Canada’s dressing room on the Olympics.

Crosby may be very aware of MacKinnon’s uniquely intense model of competitiveness. He’s seen it first-hand for years in Atlantic Canada summer season coaching classes, running sprints on dunes or simply competing on the ice removed from crowds and cameras. They are very alike in that approach, so when Crosby was requested about MacKinnon’s incapability to dial it again only a tiny bit as a way to soak in what he’s experiencing in Milan, he chuckled.

“I’ve spent so much time with him, I think I’m used to that,” Crosby stated. “I think I know how much these events or these moments mean to him. I know how hard he works, and he’s going to step up. Whatever guys need to do to get ready, and every guy’s different. Yeah, he brings a lot of passion, a lot of emotion and intensity.

“But he wants it, and that’s all you can ask for.”

There is unquestionably knowledgeable profit to being as single-mindedly obsessive about successful as MacKinnon. It is a high quality each coach would need out of a prime participant, one thing to be handed on to teammates. Still, Canada head coach Jon Cooper hopes MacKinnon at the least permits himself the freedom to have some enjoyable.

“Nate is a worker. I found that out when we were at 4 Nations and gave all the guys an off day, and he came to me and was like, ‘Hey, do you care if I skate?’ And he and Sid went down, and the two of them went on the ice together. And I thought, wow, these guys, they’re really, really dedicated and committed players,” Cooper stated. “But, there is a time you have to have fun. We tell the guys: This is the Olympics. This is an experience we may never get to be a part of again, so enjoy yourself. Enjoy yourself in the village, introduce yourself to other athletes, become part of this.

“When it’s rink time, it’s our time, and then it’s focus time. But I’m encouraging these guys to have fun.”

MacKinnon absolutely intends to take heed to his coach. He could have enjoyable in Milan. His personal enjoyable.

“I have fun playing hockey,” he stated. “I go on vacations every summer.”

---

Correction: An earlier model of this story misidentified MacKinnon’s position with Team Canada. He just isn’t an alternate captain.