Beijing Journal: 'Egos Out the Window'

Kraken first-round draft choice Matty Beniers will be writing a "Beijing Journal" to provide a personal perspective about the honor of representing his country in the Winter Olympics men's hockey tournament. In an opening win over China, Matty logged the most time on ice (18:11) of all USA forwards, handled defensive zone faceoffs, fired five shots on goal and played on both the power play and penalty-kill units. Look for frequent new Beijing Journal entries (bracketed material added for clarity and additional information). Fans who have questions for Matty can email
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Feb. 11 (Before Canada game)
When you play for your country, all egos go out the window. Not that we have big egos on this team. Every one of my teammates is a good guy and it's been a blast getting to know them.
Our game against China was great for getting used to the ice and the pace of play here in Beijing. Another thing was how physical the China game was. It was more physical than probably a lot of the younger guys have played.
The win (an 8-0 shutout) showed who we are as a team and what we're made of. It was a good game, pretty fun.
We played the full 60 minutes. We played the right way. Coach [David Quinn] talked about it - we didn't cheat to get our offense, but still got our chances [by playing a sound defensive game]. We got rewarded for it. That's good.
It felt pretty great to score my first goal in the Olympics. Our line was pretty due [University of Minnesota forward Matthew Knies and Harvard's Nick Abruzzese, who assisted on the goal]. It was good to get one.

We're all looking forward to playing Canada [Friday night 8:10 p.m. puck drop Pacific Time]. They are pretty similar to us in terms of talent. They have more older guys and we have more younger guys and maybe a bit more speed.
It's gonna be a tight game but USA-Canada are the types of games I want to play in. I have faced Canada six or seven times. My favorite is when we beat them for the [2021] World Juniors gold medal. But make no mistake, they are really good. It's always a fun game.
We have had the chance to see some fun events here at the Olympics. My favorite so far is the aerials skiing. That was so cool to see - and so impressive to see those skiers. It's obviously scary when you are watching it, but those athletes make it look easy.
We met some of the aerial skiers. One of them looks exactly like Zegras [20-year-old Ducks forward Trevor who faces the Kraken Friday and who was Beniers' fellow gold-medalist Words Junior teammate].
A bunch of us were kidding with the skier, saying you look exactly like Zegras. He said, "Yeah, he's my cousin." I think he's like a second cousin or something.