Charlie McAvoy changed his red, white and blue for black and gold on Thursday for the Bruins’ morning skate. But rest assured, those American colors will not be running from the B’s standout defenseman any time soon.

McAvoy returned to everyday life after he and his USA teammates captured the gold medal over Canada in the Winter Olympics in Italy last Sunday but, admittedly, his mind still had not fully made the transition.

“It’s hard, honestly. It feels almost like a Stanley Cup thing where the year should be over now. Mentally I had that (feeling),” said McAvoy. “Then you have to dial back in and realize what this team has done so far this year and this position we’ve put ourselves in, what we’ve done has been really special, too. There’s so much more left of this year, switching back to putting the B on and I’’m so excited for the second half.”

While he will have to refocus, the memories from Milan will be indelible. Of all the heroes that took home the gold, McAvoy’s moment is in the upper echelon of sequences that secured America’s first gold in 46 years, right behind Connor Hellebuyck’s paddle save on Devon Toews and the Zach Werenski-to-Jack Hughes golden game-winner. It came in the third period with the score tied and Canada dominating. Tom Wilson had Hellebuyck down and out and lifted it past him. McAvoy was there on the goal line to block the shot and scoop it away from danger.

“When it happened, the game was so fast and the pressure was so high, I didn’t even really stop to realize what had happened until after when everyone was sending me all that stuff,” said McAvoy. “It was a huge save and then seeing it, it would have definitely went in if I wasn’t there. Probably the only thing that got past Helly. It was just unbelievable.”

Winning gold gave McAvoy some career validation. He’s been on the other side, at 4 Nations last year and losing in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup. Winning is difficult, especially in a sport as capricious as hockey. Hopefully, he said, a Cup is somewhere on the horizon.

But it’s the little moments away from the ice that will stick with him most.

“I think by far, the camaraderie (was the biggest takeaway). We stayed in the village the whole time, so I’ll have that whole experience. From going over early for the opening ceremonies… It was a dream,” he said. “But I think what I’ll remember most is just all the time we spent together as a team in the dining hall, the trainers’ room, we had our own little area in the USA building, all those things, the bus rides, all of that camaraderie aspect.”

That camaradie extended to the gold-winning women’s team. Politics being what they are, a controversy erupted after the game when President Trump called after the game and, in the midst of the wild celebration, he told the player that they would “have to” invite the women’s team that won gold as well. As one player yelled “absolutely” and another “two for two,” Trump said that if he didn’t that he would be impeached. The players laughed, and they haven’t heard the end of it yet. McAvoy, like many players, did his best to clear the air.

“We’re sort of sorry for how we responded to it in that moment. Things happened really quick there,” said McAvoy, who has a photo on his phone of the golden-goal twins, Megan Keller and Hughes. “If you know the men’s team and the relationships that we have and the time we spent with the women’s team and how we supported them, it’s certainly not reflective of how we feel about them and their accomplishments. What they did was unbelievable. We had that third floor in the village and some of the women were there and the trainers’ room, everyone was there at all times on, the men and women’s teams. We just made friends for life with them, we supported them the same way they supported us. We share this together. I know that. I’m pretty confident they know how I feel about them and what they’ve been able to accomplish and the way they did it, with how dominant they played. I think America should be so proud of them.”

McAvoy also reflected on the difficult road that he’s taken over the last year. From the major shoulder surgery that was preceded by a dangerous infection from the injury he suffered at 4 Nations to the broken jaw that required surgery in November, he’s had some hills to climb. He talked about that with his wife before the gold medal game.

“We had talked about, just how much has gone on in our lives this year, a lot of it public, a lot of it not, what we’ve gone through as a family. I just kept in my head that ‘we deserve this.’ We deserve something good to happen to us,” said McAvoy. “You just try to be a good person and sometimes good things will happen to you. This is just amazing for my family, to have them there, every one of them, my wife and kid, my buddies from Long Beach there, my whole family, where were able to celebrate this together. We’ll have this memory forever.”

Kiley had given him a stack of letters that family members had written him before the Games. He sat down to read them before the opening ceremonies. It left such a mark, he read them again before the gold medal game. After the win, he remembers seeing his father and thinking ‘This is the guy who put me on the ice in Long Beach, New York when I was two years old.’

“None of this would feel like it would mean anything if I didn’t have my family to share it with,” said McAvoy. “You don’t do it by yourself. It does take a village. Just to have that feeling of pure pride (after the win). I kept telling him ‘We did it!’ Because you can’t get there by yourself.”