Colorado Avalanche: Why Nathan Mackinnon Should be the Next Happy Hour Guest

Who should be next on Kyle Keefe’s list of Colorado Avalanche players to interview? Nathan Mackinnon of course!

Everyone who knows me knows that I love Colorado Avalanche superstar Nathan Mackinnon, so it’s no surprise that my first article on Mile High Sticking should be about how we should have a look into his life in quarantine a lá Happy Hour with Kyle Keefe. Even Mackinnon himself has asked Kyle Keefe during Zadorov’s interview why he hasn’t been asked yet! So it seems like just a matter of time before we see him being interviewed on Instagram.

Or, maybe not. See, the ironic thing about Mackinnon being so gung-ho to be interviewed is that Mackinnon often seems to avoid the cameras. If there are cameras around, and we’re not celebrating a win, it’s unlikely that we’re going to see him. Being interviewed by Keefer would be a dip into Mackinnon’s private world, something that he has done carefully to avoid happening.

Look at his Instagram: a picture of Nova Scotia’s flag to commemorate the losses that took place in Nova Scotia, a picture of him and Tyson Barrie on the ice, a picture of him on the ice, and a picture of him and Sidney Crosby behind the scenes at what appears to be a Tim Horton’s shoot (my guess).

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While the other players use Instagram to give us a look into their lives and to talk to each other publicly, Mackinnon stays away from that. In fact, he’s only posted a couple of things to his story at all since the quarantine started, whereas his teammates have been fairly active on their stories.

So it may be less than likely that we see him be interviewed at his Nova Scotia home.

However, it might be good to see a different side of Mackinnon. We see the sports side, we see the be-all-and-end-all winning side, but what about the relaxed side? The side that’s saved for his friends? That may just be what he wants to do — save it for his friends — but it wouldn’t be so bad to let his hair down (so to speak, unless it’s gotten long during this absence of haircutters) and show us what it’s like. This could be a new way to look at Mackinnon and I for one am all for seeing him in new ways that will increase the different sides of him that we see.

Even if it’s just a pipe dream, I’ll still hope that we might get a sneak peek into what Nate’s quarantine life is about while he waits for the Colorado Avalanche season to resume.