Remaining thoughts from the gold-medal men’s hockey game

Before toasting to them, Sullivan dropped a good line about his players’ personalities: “There are whiskey drinkers and milk drinkers, and we have a lot of whiskey drinkers on this team.”

⋅ Something in the water: Mike O’Connell, the former Bruins general manager, pointed out that the last two coaches to win international gold — Sullivan and Ryan Warsofsky, who led the Americans at the World Championships last May — are from Marshfield.

That also means 1/16th of current NHL coaches are from that South Shore town. Only four have been around longer than the Rangers’ Sullivan (974 games coached). Only three are newer than Warsofsky (137).

⋅ Local connection: Sullivan began his 12-year pro career in 1990 when the Cohasset-raised O’Connell, then a rookie coach with the IHL’s San Diego Gulls, asked Boston University’s Jack Parker if he knew of any players who deserved a look. After Sullivan the player retired, O’Connell brought him in to coach AHL Providence in 2002, and promoted him to the Bruins the following year. O’Connell lost his own job when he refused to swing the ax in the disastrous post-lockout season of 2005-06.

“We gave him a bad team and ownership wanted me to fire him,” O’Connell, 70, replied to the Globe in an email from Florida. “I said I wouldn’t because he is a good coach and his situation was a product of our mismanagement with regards to the lockout. We lost five top players [Brian Rolston, Sean O’Donnell, Michael Nylander, Mike Knuble, and Sergei Gonchar]. So they let me go and let Sully finish the season, then fired him.

“A terrific person, raised by a great family, and a fun guy to be around. I am very happy for him and his family. His son-in-law was a monster in the gold-medal game.”

Sullivan added Olympic gold to his pair of Stanley Cup titles (2016-17 with Pittsburgh).

⋅ Save by McAvoy: The aforementioned Charlie McAvoy — who proposed to his wife, the former Kiley Sullivan, the week of Tuukka Rask’s July 2022 wedding at a Lake Como resort some 90 minutes north of Milan — was indeed a physical, shutdown presence during the tournament.

His most important play in the gold-medal game might have been a third-period save on a puck Tom Wilson flipped over a prone Connor Hellebuyck. It was one of many moments from Sunday he plans to watch again, and again.

“I kept saying, ‘I can’t wait to see the footage of what happened after we scored,’ because it was a complete blackout,” McAvoy said. “Who I was hugging, where I was going. I don’t know what happened. I got cut [on the face] — like, it was just euphoria, man. I can’t even explain what I was feeling, just pure joy.”

⋅ A bold move: Many Americans no doubt learned what Matt Boldy is all about. The third star of the gold-medal game opened the scoring by splitting Cale Makar and Devon Toews with a flipped self-pass, then deked Jordan Binnington. The understated forward called it a “fortunate bounce.”

Sullivan left this tournament with a deep appreciation of the 24-year-old from Millis.

“He protects pucks extremely well,” Sullivan said. “He’s strong on the wall. And for a guy that has the offensive game that he does, he has a defensive game to match it. He’s a 200-foot player. He’s got a mature game for an emerging star.”

⋅ Take that: Those on both sides of the border took shots at Canada’s biggest and most intense media market.

Team Canada forward Mark Stone, after Mitch Marner scored the overtime winner against Czechia, said the idea that Marner, his Vegas teammate, can’t play in big games “must be a Toronto thing.”

At Sunday’s news conference, a reporter apologized for pointing out to Matthews that he’ll have to return to the NHL grind in a couple of days.

Matthews: “I’m trying to live in the moment, man … come on.”

Jack Hughes cut in: “I think it doesn’t matter what anyone says now. Auston Matthews is a winner.”

Quinn Hughes followed: “Yeah, that’s what the media in Toronto should be talking about. Auston Matthews led us to a championship.”

Matthews: “I’ve got nothing else to say.”

⋅ This bird you cannot change: I attended 18 men’s hockey games and 10 women’s hockey games at Milan’s two rinks, and my coverage of Team USA means I heard arena speakers blasting the outro solo of “Free Bird” — their goal song — 59 times. I think it has worked its way into my bloodstream.

⋅ Come hungry, leave happy: I saw the best hockey imaginable and had a blast with my sportswriter pals. All that time at the rink meant I didn’t have a lot of great meals in Milan. I made three supermarket runs, and brown-bagged it most of the time.

One of my more memorable dinners was a surprise pizza delivery for a few of us hacking out gold-medal stories in the Santagiulia Arena press center. A staffer brought thick slices of prosciutto and mushroom, left over from Team Canada’s locker room.

We demolished them.

Matt Porter can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on BlueSky at mattyports.bsky.social.