Team Canada's Connor McDavid celebrates his goal against Team Germany during first period preliminary round hockey action at the IIHF World Junior Championship Saturday, December 27, 2014 in Montreal.Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press
It strains credulity that a pair of hyper-competitive athletes would be satisfied and jovial about having to share a job, particularly when a Team Canada jersey is involved.
No one, least of all a big-time hockey player, is immune to bruised feelings and jealousy, petty or otherwise.
Well, goaltender Eric Comrie is here to tell you that kind of thinking is not merely incorrect, it's dead wrong. What-kind-of-ignoramus-are-you wrong.
"That's why you're teammates," said a slightly incredulous Comrie, who's splitting time in the Canadian net with Zachary Fucale. "Anyone who ever played a team sport understands the dynamics of it, how close you get. I mean, if you want to win a gold medal, you're a family. If you don't become a family and become tight, you're never going to succeed. For us to be that tight, it makes our team even stronger."
Fair enough, then.
But perhaps those fraternal bonds will be tested just a little on New Year's Eve against the United States – it's a grudge match to determine who finishes atop Pool A of the World Junior Championships, which in theory ensures a more favourable quarter-final matchup.
Suspicious minds might conclude Canadian coach Benoît Groulx purposely decided to shift the narrative ahead of the matchup by picking Comrie ahead of local boy Zachary Fucale, who made 27 saves in a strong performance against the Finns on Monday.
If the Great Confrontation (also known as Jack versus Mac) was the principal plot going into this tournament, the story arc and dramatis personae have changed somewhat. This was to be expected: The World Junior tourney is typically carried by 19-year-old players.
Wednesday afternoon's encounter has been hotly anticipated since last year's tournament. It's the first exposure most of the hockey world will get to Canada's Connor McDavid, 17, and America's Jack Eichel, 18, the consensus top two picks in next June's NHL draft.
"It's something that's been there for a long time now, but at the end of the day it's U.S. versus Canada, not me versus him or anything like that," McDavid said, mildly, after a team practice.
Eichel sounded a similar note regarding the draft-related speculation: "There's so much more focus on winning the tournament than focusing on something that's going to occur months down the road."
Both players tend to choose their words carefully, which leaves teammates to provide the real meat of the story.
So, Curtis Lazar, is your linemate McDavid tired of all this bother about he and Eichel?
"Yeah, I think so, that's why I just want to let him go out and play. Everyone talks about it and hypes it up so much. They're both kids. I mean, I'm a kid, we're just out here trying to play the game we love," he said. "There's all that speculation and what-not, but in the end one game, one tournament's not going to determine their future. They're both going to have long NHL careers."
Groulx and U.S. counterpart Mark Osiecki said the prodigies are handling the situation admirably. It might help that while both have played well, neither is their team's most dominant player to this point.
"It's not a distraction for Connor – he's used to it," Groulx said.
"The way [Eichel] approaches it, it takes some of the pressure off his teammates. I actually think he relishes it a little bit," Osiecki said of his captain, who addressed the troops at the conclusion of a team practice here. "Unfortunately, we don't want him to shoulder everything … but he wants that and embraces it."
It'll be interesting to see how a hothouse atmosphere and a vociferously pro-Canadian crowd changes matters. Although attendance for the Montreal portion of the tournament has fallen short of expectations, a big crowd is expected.
Both teams have a wealth of dynamic forwards and mobile, two-way defencemen. Both teams are undefeated and have given up only one goal through their first three games.
Conventional wisdom holds that Canadian netminders haven't been up to the task during this country's five-year gold-medal drought. It's probably more accurate to say goaltending hasn't been Canada's salvation in the recent past at this tournament.
Comrie, a Winnipeg Jets prospect, will start in the marquee matchup of the tournament to this point. "[Fucale] said 'Have some fun.' It's just really exciting to be out there, to play this game," Comrie said.
It bears highlighting that both goalies are easy-going, confident types, and that their relationship – friendship? – dates back to previous iterations of Team Canada at the under-18 level.
Some speculate that Comrie, who shut out the Germans earlier in the tournament and looked in complete control doing it, will carry the load the rest of the way if all goes well for Canada against the U.S. But that's not how the 19-year-old Edmontonian is viewing it.
"No, not at all. It's just another game, it's just another round-robin game," he said.