If you’re looking for a good hockey fairy tale, you don’t have to dig too deep this year. Team Canada showed up in Milano Cortina with a stacked roster, sure — but nobody expected the loudest heartbeat of the team to come from a single patch of geography tucked along the Atlantic.
Yet here we are, watching what everyone back home is proudly calling the Nova Scotia Trio take over the Olympics like it’s just another Wednesday skate at Cole Harbour Place.
Canada’s Old Guard (Sidney Crosby) Still Owns the Room
Let’s start with the obvious one: Sidney Crosby. Cole Harbour’s favourite son. Canada’s favourite son. Hockey’s favourite son. At 38, he’s still out there collecting points like they’re apples in an orchard. Six points in the prelims (two goals and four assists). Now he’s officially Canada’s all-time leading Olympic scorer in the NHL-participation era. He passed Jarome Iginla, the same guy who fed him the puck for the Golden Goal. You couldn’t script that cleaner if you tried.
And here’s the thing: Sid hasn’t slowed down. At all. If anything, he’s got that look again — the one where you can almost hear him thinking, We’re not losing this. When your oldest forward is still the standard, you’re in pretty good shape.
Nathan MacKinnon Looks Like He’s Been Waiting His Entire Life
Right behind Crosby sits Nathan MacKinnon, another Cole Harbour kid who grew up only a few streets away but plays like he was shot out of a cannon. Five points so far — same goal count as Crosby. And he hasn’t even hit the “angry playoff MacKinnon” gear yet. You can feel it coming, though. You can always feel it coming with him.
People forget this is his first Olympics. He hasn’t forgotten for a second.
Brad Marchand: The Glue, the Grit, the Gnarled Spark Plug
Then you’ve got Brad Marchand, the third member of this East Coast takeover. He had to sit out the last couple of preliminary games thanks to some nagging bumps and bruises. But word is he’s ready to go again, and if you’ve ever watched Marchand play hockey, you know “ready” usually means he’s about to cause absolute chaos for someone in a different jersey.
Team Canada doesn’t just need his scoring; they need his edge. The guy brings emotional oxygen.
Three Players From the Same Corner of Canada Are Carrying a Nation
If you grew up in Nova Scotia — a province roughly the size of Winnipeg, you know the story. There were long drives to practice, cold rinks, and minor hockey coaches who somehow know every kid by name. Paul Mason, who’s been coaching forever in Cole Harbour, likes to remind people that greatness doesn’t happen by accident.
And watching Crosby, MacKinnon, and Marchand lift Canada to 3–0 with a plus-17 differential? You start to think he might be right.
The knockout stage is coming. The pressure’s rising. And once again, the country is looking east — to three guys who learned the game on the same ice as the kids watching them now.
Related: McDavid, MacKinnon Praise Tom Wilson, Glad He’s on Their Side
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