Nathan MacKinnon, John Cooper Were Coping Hard After Losing Gold To Team USA

Team Canada men’s hockey star Nathan MacKinnon and head coach Jon Cooper are trying really, really hard to cope with losing out on Gold at the Winter Olympics.

46 years to the day after defeating the Soviet Union in the "Miracle on Ice" game, Team USA men’s hockey defeated arch nemesis Canada in overtime to win gold, thanks to an absolutely torqued wrister from Jack Hughes (who will need dental work).

Read: Team USA Celebrates Gold Medal Win With Johnny Gaudreau's Kids In Incredible Tribute

Connor Hellebuyck made 41 saves. Matt Boldy chipped in a key goal in the first period. The Americans killed off three penalties, including a lengthy 5-on-3 situation. Everything that was required of a team to win an epic game is exactly what the Americans did.

And MacKinnon and Cooper just can’t handle it.

MacKinnon Tried To Take Away From The American's Victory

MacKinnon is one of the best players in the NHL and is a surefire Hall of Famer. He is also a deadly shooter, but somehow he missed a wide open net in the third period that would’ve been guaranteed gold for Canada.

It’s been four hours since this game ended, and I still can’t process that a player of his quality missed an opportunity like that. That's like Steph Curry missing a wide-open three. It almost never happens.

That will haunt him for the rest of his life, in addition to being the guy that failed to dislodge the puck from Zach Werenski before feeding it to Hughes. 

After the game, reporters talked briefly to MacKinnon about how he was processing the loss. Instead of accepting the defeat with a level of sportsmanship, he complained that the wrong team won it all. 

I mean, seriously? How hard is it to say you lost to a team that, despite not getting as many shots on goal as Canada did, played like champions? Sure, the loss stings, but this dude needs to get it together.

Just brutal stuff from Nate Dogg, but he somehow managed to not be the biggest sore loser on the team.

Cooper's Quote Is Comical To Its Core

When Cooper had his turn to step up to the mic, he chose to complain and whine about the format of overtime. 

In all honesty, I agree that the format is dumb. You need 5-on-5 to determine a gold medal champion, not glorified pond hockey.

However, it was no surprise to anyone. The refs didn’t change it to 3-on-3 to make the Americans happy after regulation. Everyone knew it was coming, and Canada should’ve been ecstatic about it.

All the writers at OutKick agreed that 3-on-3 hockey heavily favored Canada's speed and skill (see their overtime win against Czechia in the quarters). To quote Dan Zaksheske, "More ice for McDavid is bad news…Canada's big advantage over the US is speed." And Canada had half a dozen other world-class speedsters waiting on the bench after McDavid. They just couldn’t get it done. 

And that’s the brutality of sports. Sometimes it feels like you did more of the right things than your opponent, but you still lose. In those moments, you have to congratulate your opponent and move on. 

But MacKinnon and Cooper just couldn’t do that. That’s a bad look for the best team in the world. 

Scratch that — the second-best team in the world.