MILAN — For Frank Vereline, a big New York Islanders fan, coming to Italy with his family to watch the U.S. men's national hockey team compete in the Olympic Games was the easy decision.
The hard decision was which jersey to buy.
In the end, Vereline found he couldn't bring himself to buy the jersey of one of Team USA's biggest stars, perhaps the most recognizable name today in American men's hockey: Matthew Tkachuk.
"I hate the guy," Vereline said. "He's on our team. I'll root for him in this game. As soon as the Olympics are over, that's it. I'm done."
Tkachuk, the 28-year-old Florida Panthers forward, along with his younger brother, the Ottawa Senators captain Brady Tkachuk, 26, are genuine talents who have earned their spots as starters for the U.S. team here at the Olympics in Italy.
Back home, they are two of the most hated players in hockey, as opposing fans complain about their trash-talking, their physicality on the ice, for some even their politics. But here in Italy, all of that is on pause as the Tkachuks are key to Team USA's pursuit of its first Olympic gold in men's ice hockey since 1980.
"They are winners," said Dan Blanda, a New York Rangers fan who made the trip to Milan to see the team play. "Whatever you think about them on any personal level, they are the best of the best when it comes to that playoff style of hockey."
An 'annoying' play style
The Tkachuks are elite at getting under their opponents' skin. They talk trash, they make hits, and they're not afraid of a fight. Simply put, the brothers are "very annoying sometimes," said former Olympian and NHL All-Star T.J. Oshie.
"They bring a blue-collar rugged game to the ice, just like their dad did," said Oshie, who played alongside Keith Tkachuk in St. Louis — "he was a phenomenal chirper and trash talker" — then later played against the sons after they came into the NHL.
The younger Tkachuks come by their style honestly. They have elite touch around the net, Oshie said, and they are unafraid to play near the goal, where contact like a crosscheck to the back or a slash across the legs is inevitable.
"Teammates that go to those hard areas and are willing to put their body on the line to score goals — that motivates their teammates to follow along," he said. "So they drag people into the fight with them, in that sense, and also on the physical side."
(That's continued here at the Olympics, where a live mic caught Matthew calling out to Germany's Leon Draisaitl, a leading player for the Edmonton Oilers, who have lost two years running to Matthew's Panthers in the Stanley Cup Final. "Always the bridesmaid, never the bride," Tkachuk said.)
On an episode of their podcast Wingmen, the brothers acknowledged the anti-Tkachuk sentiment.
"What's better than being booed?" Brady asked with a smile. "There's nothing better than being booed and scoring and winning," his brother answered. "In a tight game, you score, the team wins, and you're getting booed going off the ice — there's no better feeling."
Brawling since the beginning
The brothers have been brawling since the beginning, said Keith and his wife, Chantal. "They were best friends, but they had their bouts for sure," said Chantal. "Best friends, enemies. We had it all," Keith said.
Matthew, the older brother, has more hardware. In 2023, he was named a finalist for the Hart Memorial Trophy, the award for the NHL's most valuable player. Then, in 2024 and 2025, his Panthers won the Stanley Cup.
Brady, a four-time NHL All-Star, is bigger by 2 inches and 20-something pounds. But to hear his mom tell it, he is the sweeter one, with a "Jekyll and Hyde" effect when he puts on his hockey gear.
"He's just the sweetest, kindest, biggest hearted person you'll ever meet. And then he gets on the ice, and it's like his head spins three times, and he becomes this very tough, kind of crazy guy," she said.
Keith Tkachuk played in four Olympic Games, the last of them in 2006. Matthew was 8, and Brady just 6. ("Missing two weeks of school was awesome," recalled Brady, speaking at a press conference last year.)
"We had the face paint going, decked out in all the USA stuff," Matthew told NPR. "We were old enough to recognize the importance of the tournament and the importance of our dad being there, and super thrilled that we could experience that."
Since then, it has been one step after another for the younger Tkachuks to follow in their dad's Olympic footsteps — invitations to development camps, junior international tournaments, NHL success.
In the winter leading up to the 2022 Winter Games, Matthew was having the best season of his young career, and he believed he would make the Olympic roster. But COVID-19 outbreaks had disrupted the NHL season to the extent that the league and its players' union agreed to not participate in the Olympics.
"I was really upset with that," said Matthew. "You never know how many opportunities you're going to get."
Now, NHL players are back in the Olympics for the first time in more than a decade. The Tkachuks say they intend to make the most of it. Through three games, Brady has scored two goals and Matthew has five assists. On Wednesday, they will face Sweden in a quarterfinal game.
From hockey fame to household name at the 4 Nations Face-Off
The two brothers launched from hockey fame to household names last year, when the U.S. and Canadian national teams teed off twice in the 4 Nations Face-Off, a best-on-best tournament held by the NHL in the weeks following President Trump's second inauguration.
At the time, Trump was turning up the heat on the U.S.-Canada relationship with significant tariffs and comments about making Canada the 51st state.
Just before the tournament began, the Florida Panthers visited the White House to celebrate their Stanley Cup win from the summer before.
There, Matthew gave the president a warm, personal thanks. "Being one of the few Americans who loves this country so much, this is such an incredible day for myself," he said. "You wake up every day and really grateful to be an American, so thank you."
Days later, when the U.S. and Canada met for an initial match in Montreal, the atmosphere in the arena was explosive. Canadian fans packing the stands booed the singing of "The Star-Spangled Banner."
Then came the fights.
There were three separate tilts in the first nine seconds of the game — first Matthew took on Canadian forward Brandon Hagel. Then Brady grappled with Canada's Sam Bennett, then finally, Canada's Colton Parayko fought American forward J.T. Miller.
Keith and Chantal Tkachuk were in the stands, where Keith had noticed his sons were looking twitchy just before puck drop. "He called it actually," Chantal laughed. "He could tell just by their body language. And he said to me, he goes, 'Oh, Matthew is going to fight.'"
The U.S. won that game, 3-1, in front of a crowd of more than 21,000 people on Canada's home turf. "We had to send a message," Matthew told reporters after the game. "The message we wanted to send is, 'It's our time.'"
(Matthew has insisted that the political atmosphere didn't play a role in the heat that he and his brother brought to those games. "There could have been nothing else going on, and still — the results and the animosity, the hatred between countries in those games — you were still going to see that," he told NPR.)
The event transcended hockey's usual pedestrian viewership. The final between the U.S. and Canada, held in Boston five days later, was watched by nearly 10 million viewers in the U.S., a bigger audience than any NHL game in decades, according to Sports Business Journal.
The Americans came agonizingly close to winning that game. But they ultimately lost in overtime, 3-2, a loss that is now providing plenty of motivation for the Olympic team.
Over the past two years, as the Panthers have won two Stanley Cups, with the parades and celebrations and parties that followed, Matthew Tkachuk has learned winning makes for great memories.
That's his goal here in Italy, too.
"We want to win it and have lifelong memories," Matthew said. "This has the makings to be an opportunity of an absolute lifetime for us, and we're going enjoy every single second of it."
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