They share the same home province, off-season workouts, and spots in conversations about the game’s greatest.
What Sidney Crosby and Nathan MacKinnon also recently shared is a summer full of fun shooting commercials for Tim Hortons – and one unforgettable moment for Kenya’s only men's ice hockey team.
Once a youngster with Crosby posters plastered all over his wall, MacKinnon, a finalist for the 2017-18 Ted Lindsay Award, has risen to the ranks of game’s best players alongside his one-time idol.
“I feel like I’m just friends with him now,” said MacKinnon in an interview with NHLPA.com. “I stopped idolizing him a long time ago. We still joke about that, that I had posters of him in my room as a kid and now we’re buddies. It’s been fun to train with him.”
Their friendship is on full display in the blooper reel (above) for the pairing's latest spot for Tim Horton's, which is arguably even funnier than the commercial itself.
You can check out the full commercial, one the duo's one of many commercials promoting the coffee chain, released in late September here.
Crosby, MacKinnon join Kenya Ice Lions
It was their first game in full gear, it was their first game with an opponent.
Tim Hortons also tabbed Crosby and MacKinnon to surprise Kenyan's only ice hockey team, the Kenya Ice Lions. Some of the players were brought to tears – likely many who watched the video shared by Tim Hortons likely were too.
While the team's captain, Ben Azegere, can be heard telling his teammates how amazing it felt to be in full gear, he had no idea that his favourite player was about to join his team for an on-ice session, alongside MacKinnon, sporting their Kenyan team jersey.
"Sidney, seeing my favorite player come through the door wearing our jersey, I felt like I was in heaven." Azegere said in the above video.
"The stuff that we were given will help us to grow the sport in Kenya."
For Crosby, it highlighted one of his favourite parts about hockey.
"To share the game that we love to play, I think I had just as much fun as any of those guys," Crosby said. "That's the best part about the game, is how it reaches so many people, even in a place like Kenya where you wouldn't think that there's even ice."
So how did they play?
"I didn't know what to expect," MacKinnon explained. "But I thought those guys looked great. It's cool to see the genuine excitement that they had, and it got us really fired up."
