Celtics’ Jayson Tatum and NHL star Matthew Tkachuk joked around in same high school class – now they’ll both compete for a championship this month
Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics will fight for an NBA championship against the Dallas Mavericks.
Matthew Tkachuk and NHL franchise Florida Panthers will face the Edmonton Oilers in this year's Stanley Cup Finals.
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Both players will compete for the Holy Grail of their respective sports this month.
As it turns out, they both go way back.
Tatum and Tkachuk went to high school together at Chaminade College Preparatory School in Missouri, near St. Louis.
On the eve of both championship series, a clip of a young Tatum and Tkachuk has resurfaced.
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During the footage, which is on Tatum's official YouTube channel, the Boston star explains why he chose to attend the prep school, citing 'great people and fans' as well as schoolmates including Tkachuk.
Tkachuk can be seen bouncing around in the background.
It's pretty rare two athletes from the same high school are competing on such a world stage at exactly the same time.
However, it's not the first time the video has resurfaced.
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Tkachuk appeared on Inside the NBA last season and discussed his time growing up with Tatum.
“That clip comes up probably a few times a year when me and him are doing well. It’s crazy that we were in the same gym class for all those years and it’s cool to say that we’re both representing Chaminade,” said Tkachuk.
“We always joked around that when we were older we’d be each other’s agent in each other’s sport,” Tkachuk also told the. “That would not have been a good decision.”
“It’s just cool seeing a guy succeed at another sport and seeing what he went through, every morning at 6 a.m. shooting hoops and getting ready,” Tkachuk added.
“Our mentalities when we were younger, we both knew what we wanted to do and had that as a goal. We both weren’t going to be stopped and both put in a lot of work.”
Tatum, meanwhile, remembered Tkachuk as the funny kid but knew he had the potential to be an elite athlete.
“I mean, he had a lot of jokes and he liked to play a lot,” Tatum said at Celtics’ practice. “I wouldn’t say he got in trouble, though, but he was a funny kid.”
“We were kind of the two best athletes in our class, because I had played on the USA team for kids in high school and he had as well, plus his dad played for the St. Louis Blues, so people kind of figured we would make it somewhere,” Tatum added.
The Celtics forward flourished at Chaminade, winning Gatorade’s National Player of the Year award in his senior year in 2016.
He graduated and played basketball at Duke before becoming the No. 3 pick in the 2017 NBA draft.
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Since then he has become a perennial All-Star and MVP candidate.
He's a five-time NBA All-Star and four-time All-NBA selection, and was named the NBA Eastern Conference Finals Most Valuable Player in 2022 - the year the Celtics lost to the Golden State Warriors in the Finals.
Tkachuk, meanwhile, only spent one year of his high school tenure at Chaminade before leaving the school to join the U.S. National Development Team to pursue his dream of becoming a hockey star.
He was the No. 6 overall pick in the 2016 NHL Draft and was named a finalist for the NHL's Hart Memorial Trophy as the league's most valuable player in the 2022-23 season.
The 26-year-old helped lead the Panthers to the 2023 Stanley Cup Finals but they lost to the Vegas Golden Knights in five games.
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The Celtics tip-off the 2024 NBA Finals against the Dallas Mavericks on Thursday in Boston.
Tkachuk and the Panthers will take to the ice on Saturday for Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals against the Oilers.
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