DETROIT \u2013 Detroit Red Wings forward Alex DeBrincat played youth hockey with Megan Keller while growing up in Farmington Hills and saw at an early age how good she was.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was one of the best players on our team,\u201d DeBrincat said. <\/p>\n
Keller grew up to be one of the best players on her women\u2019s teams and on Thursday scored in overtime to lift the United States past Canada 2-1 for the Olympic gold medal, capping a dominant run for Team USA.<\/p>\n
\u201cReally happy for her,\u201d DeBrincat said. \u201cI was tuned into that. I was pretty pumped, so it\u2019s awesome. This is her third Olympics, and she\u2019s already got two gold (medals), so definitely cool for her and we\u2019re excited for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
DeBrincat and Keller played together for a few years around ages 8-10 when girls played on boys teams. He is a close friend of Keller\u2019s brother, Ryan, who plays for the Utah Mammoth.<\/p>\n
\u201cDefinitely cool to see her career and what she\u2019s been able to do,\u201d DeBrincat said. \u201cShe\u2019s a big spokesperson for the women\u2019s hockey community, really growing the game and one of those faces that has really taken the game to the next level.\u201d<\/p>\n
Todd McLellan\u2019s oldest son, Tyson, also played with Keller as a youth.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think of where she was and watching her do what she did yesterday is really remarkable,\u201d McLellan said. \u201cShe was one of the better players on that boys team.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike a lot of the dads, you go out and help in practice and stuff, and she was committed and you could see she was not by any means out of place and a lot of times leading the way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Keller, 29, tied for the team lead with nine points (three goals, six assists). The U.S. went 7-0, outscoring opponents 33-2.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was pretty crazy to see they only let up two goals the whole tournament,\u201d DeBrincat said. \u201cFor a minute there, I thought they were going to lose giving up two goals the whole tournament. Obviously, Canada looked good, too, but I think the U.S. right now is probably on the next level.\u201d<\/p>\n
McLellan noted how far women\u2019s hockey has come over the past couple of decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the athletes are exceptional,\u201d McLellan said. \u201cThey\u2019ve just gotten so much better than they were in the past and it\u2019s great they\u2019re getting the support they get.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DETROIT \u2013 Detroit Red Wings forward Alex DeBrincat played youth hockey with Megan Keller while growing up in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480859,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[190960,217874,2250,212293,217875,385,45567,1082,213617,99,215487,45569,211565,217876],"class_list":["post-480858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-2026-milan-cortina-olympic-games","tag-2026-winter-olympic-games","tag-events","tag-milan-cortina-olympics","tag-milan-cortina-winter-olympics","tag-nhl","tag-olympic-games","tag-olympics","tag-olympics-2026","tag-sports","tag-winter-games","tag-winter-olympic-games","tag-winter-olympics-2026","tag-xxv-olympiad"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}