Charlie McAvoy and father-in-law Mike Sullivan are cherishing being on the same US 4 Nations team

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Charlie McAvoy and father-in-law Mike Sullivan are cherishing being on the same US 4 Nations team

2025-02-14 03:32 Last Updated At：03:51

MONTREAL (AP) — Charlie McAvoy and Mike Sullivan have a strong connection off the ice that goes way beyond hockey.

McAvoy is married to Sullivan’s daughter Kiley, who recently gave birth to the couple’s first child. McAvoy plays defense for the Boston Bruins, Sullivan coaches the Pittsburgh Penguins and their careers had not overlapped until now, when they're on the same team with the United States at the 4 Nations Face-Off.

“I have a son now, for his dad to play for his grandpa, those are things that I would have never dreamed of,” McAvoy said. “This is just where hockey’s taken us, where our jobs have taken us, so it’s extremely special.”

Sullivan, the U.S. team's head coach, called it an incredible privilege and thinks he and McAvoy will gain a greater appreciation of this looking back on it.

“Someday we might look back on this and smile,” Sullivan said. “Charlie means the world to us, to our family. First and foremost, he’s a terrific hockey player. He’s fierce competitor. But more importantly than that is he’s a great kid and a good person and he means the world to our family.”

Rhys Michael McAvoy was born in late January. Sullivan joked he had “zero input” on the name Kiley and Charlie chose.

But adding to their family just before being together for an international tournament only added to their joy.

“What it’s like when him and my daughter just had their first baby, for my wife and I, it’s an incredible thrill,” Sullivan said. "It’s certainly a privilege to be a grandparent, and we’re enjoying that process also. And it’s new. He’s only 2 weeks old, I believe. It’s exciting times for our family. This event just adds to the excitement. I’m certainly, from my standpoint, I can’t tell you what it means to me to have the opportunity to share in this event with him.”

McAvoy said he does get teased a bit by his U.S. teammates, but he added that he and Sullivan are professionals and there's no concerns about the dynamics of playing for his father-in-law.

“Everybody gets it at this point,” McAvoy said. “My friends all know, and everybody really knows. It’s certainly funnier now and easier to make a couple jokes about it, but at the end of the day, we’ve both worked to be here and it’s an incredible honor to be here together.”

Canada lost Shea Theodore to a right wrist/forearm injury in the middle of its 4 Nations-opening overtime victory against Sweden, and coach Jon Cooper said the defenseman is out for the rest of the tournament.

“I just think about Theo as a person — I know how much this tournament meant to him and representing his country and being on that team,” said U.S. center Jack Eichel, a teammate of Theodore's in the NHL with the Vegas Golden Knights. "Obviously it’s a huge loss for our team in Vegas and what he brings to our team on a night-in and night-out basis. He’s been so good this year. It’s never fun seeing anyone get hurt, and obviously I care about Theo as a person so I feel for him.”

The next man up is Philadelphia's Travis Sanheim. He's also the only other defenseman on the roster because each team was only allowed to bring seven.

“I just said that I’d be ready if they needed me,” Sanheim told reporters in Brossard, Quebec, after Canada's optional practice. "You’d hate to see it happen this way, but I’m looking forward to it.”

While Canada's Sidney Crosby and Nathan MacKinnon took the bus out to the Canadiens' practice facility in Brossard to get on the ice, Sweden's coaching staff opted not to have players skate at all. The snowstorm dumping several inches (centimeters) on Montreal factored in to that decision as the Swedes prepare to face rival Finland on Saturday afternoon.

“I felt the boys need the rest,” coach Sam Hallam said. “And just with the weather being what it is, it would be double time out, double time back. I think for Saturday we’re going to be better by just having a day off today.”

Hallam did not commit to starting Filip Gustavsson again, after the Minnesota Wild goaltender was excellent in making 24 saves against Canada.

“It was a really good game for us for 50 minutes (Wednesday night), and that goes from goalie all the way up,” Hallam said. "We’re really happy with the way he played (against Canada), and we’re just going to put our minds into who gives us the best chance to win Saturday.”

The tournament-opening ceremony involved the captains of all four teams and a legendary player from each of the four countries: Mike Richter from the U.S., Teemu Selanne from Finland, Daniel Alfredsson from Sweden and Mario Lemieux from Canada. Fans at Bell Centre roared when Lemieux walked onto the red carpet on the ice and chanted “Mario! Mario!” to honor arguably the greatest French Canadian player in hockey history.

Aleksander Barkov, the Stanley Cup-winning captain of the Florida Panthers who also wears the “C" for Finland, was blown away by the reception Lemieux got.

“I got to experience an amazing moment there on the ice, them obviously welcoming Mario Lemieux back in the building,” Barkov said. “It was one of the coolest moments I’ve ever been a part of. It was a great experience and great atmosphere.”

AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/NHL

Trump administration deports hundreds of immigrants even as a judge orders their removals be stopped

2025-03-17 06:35 Last Updated At：06:40

The Trump administration has transferred hundreds of immigrants to El Salvador even as a federal judge issued an order temporarily barring the deportations under an 18th century wartime declaration targeting Venezuelan gang members, officials said Sunday. Flights were in the air at the time of the ruling.

U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg issued an order Saturday temporarily blocking the deportations, but lawyers told him there were already two planes with immigrants in the air — one headed for El Salvador, the other for Honduras. Boasberg verbally ordered the planes be turned around, but they apparently were not and he did not include the directive in his written order.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, in a statement Sunday, responded to speculation about whether the administration was flouting court orders: “The administration did not ‘refuse to comply’ with a court order. The order, which had no lawful basis, was issued after terrorist TdA aliens had already been reoved from U.S. territory.”

The acronym refers to the Tren de Aragua gang, which Trump targeted in his unusual proclamation that was released Saturday

In a court filing Sunday, the Department of Justice, which has appealed Boasberg's decision, said it would not use the Trump proclamation he blocked for further deportations if his decision is not overturned.

Trump's allies were gleeful over the results.

“Oopsie…Too late,” Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who agreed to house about 300 immigrants for a year at a cost of $6 million in his country’s prisons, wrote on the social media site X above an article about Boasberg’s ruling. That post was recirculated by White House communications director Steven Cheung.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who negotiated an earlier deal with Bukele to house immigrants, posted on the site: “We sent over 250 alien enemy members of Tren de Aragua which El Salvador has agreed to hold in their very good jails at a fair price that will also save our taxpayer dollars.”

Steve Vladeck, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, said that Boasberg's verbal directive to turn around the planes was not technically part of his final order but that the Trump administration clearly violated the “spirit” of it.

“This just incentivizes future courts to be hyper specific in their orders and not give the government any wiggle room,” Vladeck said.

The immigrants were deported after Trump’s declaration of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which has been used only three times in U.S. history.

The law, invoked during the War of 1812 and World Wars I and II, requires a president to declare the United States is at war, giving him extraordinary powers to detain or remove foreigners who otherwise would have protections under immigration or criminal laws. It was last used to justify the detention of Japanese-American civilians during World War II.

Venezuela’s government in a statement Sunday rejected the use of Trump’s declaration of the law, characterizing it as evocative of “the darkest episodes in human history, from slavery to the horror of the Nazi concentration camps.”

Tren de Aragua originated in an infamously lawless prison in the central state of Aragua and accompanied an exodus of millions of Venezuelans, the overwhelming majority of whom were seeking better living conditions after their nation’s economy came undone during the past decade. Trump seized on the gang during his campaign to paint misleading pictures of communities that he contended were “taken over” by what were actually a handful of lawbreakers.

The Trump administration has not identified the immigrants deported, provided any evidence they are in fact members of Tren de Aragua or that they committed any crimes in the United States. It also sent two top members of the Salvadoran MS-13 gang to El Salvador who had been arrested in the United States.

Video released by El Salvador’s government Sunday showed men exiting airplanes onto an airport tarmac lined by officers in riot gear. The men, who had their hands and ankles shackled, struggled to walk as officers pushed their heads down to have them bend down at the waist.

The video also showed the men being transported to prison in a large convoy of buses guarded by police and military vehicles and at least one helicopter. The men were shown kneeling on the ground as their heads were shaved before they changed into the prison’s all-white uniform — knee-length shorts, T-shirt, socks and rubber clogs — and placed in cells.

The immigrants were taken to the notorious CECOT facility, the centerpiece of Bukele's push to pacify his once violence-wracked country through tough police measures and limits on basic rights

The Trump administration said the president actually signed the proclamation contending Tren de Aragua was invading the United States on Friday night but didn't announce it until Saturday afternoon. Immigration lawyers said that, late Friday, they noticed Venezuelans who otherwise couldn't be deported under immigration law being moved to Texas for deportation flights. They began to file lawsuits to halt the transfers.

“Basically any Venezuelan citizen in the US may be removed on pretext of belonging to Tren de Aragua, with no chance at defense,” Adam Isacson of the Washington Office for Latin America, a human rights group, warned on X.

The litigation that led to the hold on deportations was filed on behalf of five Venezuelans held in Texas who lawyers said were concerned they'd be falsely accused of being members of the gang. Once the act is invoked, they warned, Trump could simply declare anyone a Tren de Aragua member and remove them from the country.

Boasberg barred those Venezuelans' deportations Saturday morning when the suit was filed, but only broadened it to all people in federal custody who could be targeted by the act after his afternoon hearing. He noted that the law has never before been used outside of a congressionally declared war and that plaintiffs may successfully argue Trump exceeded his legal authority in invoking it.

The bar on deportations stands for up to 14 days and the immigrants will remain in federal custody during that time. Boasberg has scheduled a hearing Friday to hear additional arguments in the case.

He said he had to act because the immigrants whose deportations may actually violate the U.S. Constitution deserved a chance to have their pleas heard in court.

“Once they’re out of the country," Boasberg said, "there’s little I could do."

Cano reported from Caracas, Venezuela.