Canada’s Olympic story is the Nova Scotia Trio

If you’re looking for a good hockey fairy tale, you don’t have to dig too deep this year. Team Canada certainly showed up at Milano Cortina with a stacked roster, but no one expected the team’s loudest heartbeat to come from a single piece of geography tucked along the Atlantic Ocean.

And yet here we are, watching what everyone at home is proudly shouting the Nova Scotia trio take over the Olympics like it’s just a Wednesday skate at Cole Harbor Place.

Canada’s old guard (Sidney Crosby) still owns the room

Let’s start with the obvious: Sidney Crosby. Cole Harbour’s favorite son. Canada’s favorite son. Hockey’s favorite son. At 38 years old, he is still collecting points like apples in an orchard. Six points in the preliminaries (two goals and four assists). Now he is officially Canada’s all-time leading scorer in the NHL participation era. He passed Jarome Iginla, the same man who gave him the puck for the Golden Goal. You couldn’t script that cleaner if you tried.

And here’s the thing: Sid hasn’t slowed down. Not at all. At least he has that look again, the one in which you can almost hear him thinking: We’re not losing this. If your senior striker is still the default, you’re in pretty good shape.

Nathan MacKinnon looks like he’s been waiting all his life

Right behind Crosby is Nathan MacKinnon, another kid from Cole Harbor who grew up just a few blocks away but plays like he was shot out of a cannon. Five points so far – same goal as Crosby. And he hasn’t even used the “angry playoff MacKinnon” gear yet. Yet you feel it coming. You always feel it coming to him.

People forget that these are his first Olympics. He hasn’t forgotten it for a second.

Brad Marchand: The glue, the grit, the gnarly spark plug

Then you have Brad Marchand, the third member of this East Coast takeover. He had to sit out the last few preliminary matches due to a number of nagging bumps and bruises. But word is he’s ready to go again, and if you’ve ever seen Marchand play hockey, you know that “ready” usually means he’s about to cause absolute chaos for someone in another jersey.

Team Canada doesn’t just need its score; they need his edge. The man brings emotional oxygen.

Three players from the same corner of Canada carry a nation

If you grew up in Nova Scotia – a province about the size of Winnipeg, you know the story. There were long practice runs, cold rinks, and little hockey coaches who somehow knew every kid by name. Paul Mason, a longtime coach at Cole Harbor, likes to remind people of that Greatness does not happen by accident.

And watch Crosby, MacKinnon and Marchand lift Canada to 3-0 with a difference of plus-17? You start to think he might be right.

The knockout stage is coming. The pressure is increasing. And once again the country looks east – to three boys who learned the game on the same ice as the kids watching them now.

Related: McDavid, MacKinnon Praise Tom Wilson, glad he’s on their side