A late-game scuffle erupted in Team USA's dominant semifinal win with the Tkachuk boys in the middle of it.
Team USA's 6-2 victory over Slovakia on Friday was as big a pounding as you'll ever see in an Olympic men's hockey semifinal, so in the final moments of the game, with one Olympic dream being so brutally destroyed, emotions were understandably a little raw.
Late in the game, players started to run around a little, and as you'd expect, the Tkachuk boys were right in the middle of it.
Both Brady and Matthew were thrown out of the game after a late scuffle with Slovakia's Erik Cernak, a member of the Tampa Bay Lightning. Matthew and Cernak got into it, as they often do in the battle of Florida, and when Brady didn't like how it was going, he went at Cernak as well.
Referees told all three men to call it a night, giving them game misconducts, which didn't matter at all at that point. Not only was it late, the game's outcome hadn't been in doubt for over an hour. The men appeared to exchange words near the teams' dressing rooms, but nothing came of it.
The skirmish was a little reminder of the Tkachuk shenanigans from last year's wild 4-Nations Faceoff game between Canada and the USA when the boys both got into fights in the first three seconds of the game.
Two seconds in, Matthew squared off with Brandon Hagel (that old Florida rivalry again). When that was done, Brady and Canada's Sam Bennett went at it. Like a scene out of Slapshot, Matthew was waiting for his little brother in the penalty box where they excitedly exchange high fives.
Finally, after a good long stretch of six seconds without a fight, we had our third brawl, with Canada's Colton Parayko manhandling JT Miller.
So that was three fights in nine seconds, a game hockey fans will never forget, setting the tone for some of the emotions we'll see in Sunday's gold medal game as Canada meets the US in the men's Olympic final for the first time since Vancouver in 2010.
For the record, even though all six men involved in those brawls are available for the final, we're unlikely to see the Tkachuks or anyone else dropping the gloves since fighting means an automatic ejection at the Olympics.
However, in the unlikely event that Sunday's game is one-sided at the end, then all bets are off.
Steve Warne
The Hockey News
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