from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

Honestly, what caught everyone’s fancy at the World Cup of Hockey wasn’t only the speed, skill and imagination of the Team North America Under-24s, it was the palpable joy with which Matthews, Connor McDavid, Johnny Gaudreau, Nathan MacKinnon and their teammates played and competed against their buttoned-down opponents.

If you weren’t there, you might not quite understand the universal appeal that group generated in what became a movie-stealing, three-scene cameo. They played as if unencumbered and as if they actually were unafraid to have fun on the ice. And anyone who was in Toronto for the tournament left there wanting more of it.

No, I don’t particularly want to see Gaudreau do the equivalent of a bat-flip every time he scores on a breakaway after streaking down the ice, and no, I am not advocating for hockey to become a sport in which the name on the back of the uniform becomes more important than the logo on the front of it.

But this is 2016, and this is a league whose product has somehow failed to keep pace with its talent, a league in which the average of about six goals per game doesn’t allow for all that many celebrations. So when they’re earned, let’s have them.

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