Olympics are here for many NHL stars who waited half their careers or more for this

By Stephen Whyno The Associated Press MILAN — Nathan MacKinnon knew he wouldn’t make Canada’s 2014 Olympic team as an 18-year-old NHL rookie, while Germany’s Leon Draisaitl and Czechia’s David Pastrnak were still a year away from being drafted. Canadian Connor McDavid and American Jack Eichel were just 17 and Auston Matthews 16 when the best hockey players in the world went to Sochi. They all figured they’d get their chance four years later, and it never came as the league chose not to go to Pyeongchang in 2018 — and then a global pandemic wreaked havoc and wrecked the chance to play in Beijing in 2022. “We’ve been waiting, our generation, pretty much whole of our careers to play at the...