The USA Men’s Ice Hockey Team will begin their hunt for Olympic gold, Thursday February 12th in Milan, Italy.
The team is led by Captain Auston Matthews of the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs. Other well known names include Alternate Captain Matthew Tkachuk of the NHL’s Florida Panthers and his brother Brady Tkachuk of the Ottawa Senators. The other Alternate Captain is Charlie McAvoy of the Boston Bruins. This year’s team is made fully of NHL players, with the NHL returning to the Winter Games for the first time since the 2014 games in Sochi, Russia. The NHL team with the most representatives on Team USA is the Minnesota Wild (Quinn Hughes, Brock Faber, Matt Boldy).
Team USA’s first match of the preliminary round will be against Latvia at 2:10 p.m. central time Thursday. Just 6 of Latvia’s roster members are also NHL players (Rodrigo Abols, Teddy Blueger, Zemus Girgensons, Uvis Balinskis, Elvis Merzlikins, Arturs Silovs).
To watch Thursday’s Olympic opener in real time there will be multiple options.
With Cable: USA Network will air the game.
Streaming: Peacock (The Streaming Home of Olympic Coverage) will air the game.
Kenny Albert will serve as the play-by-play commentator, Eddie Olczyk will handle Analyst duties, and Brian Boucher will be the “inside-the-glass” reporter for Thursday’s broadcast.
On the Books
- Moneyline: Latvia +1100 | USA -2000
- Puck Line: Latvia +3.5 (+125) | USA -3.5 (-150)
- Over/Under: Over 6.5 | Under 6.5
