The song Coney Island is about two people who lost feelings in their failing relationship after neglecting to foster it. The narrators begin to reflect on if they had done something differently, would the relationship not be falling apart in front of them. Visiting Coney island is a metaphor for the speakers revisiting their relationship and all the times they made each other happy before they stopped putting the effort in. Before they stopped putting everything else before the relationship.

With Mack, the more he loses, the more distant he becomes. By not ever winning gold for his country, he begins to obsess over that. All his effort and attention goes towards hockey as he strives to become better and better. A generational talent. The next Crosby, or McDavid, or Gretzky. Putting all his time into winning big for Canada to become one of the greats. His attention is set on the top. His olympic debut allowed him to meet and work with the best of the best that he forgets about Will and the legacy their making; Will never being his centerfold.

As the relationship slowly starts dying he wonders if Will was waiting for him. If he was outside at all their favorite spots and he was too preoccupied to show up. Could that have saved them? Even if it could, it can't make up for that one big difference. Will has done the one thing Mack desperately wants: he has brought home gold to his country.

With Will, his envy of generational talent, Macklin Celebrini, gets the best of him. It’s not that he wants that pressure of being the best in the league, it's the fact that Mack is moving on without him. He’s going off to the olympics, being captain Canada all while he was 19 years old. Will’s belief is that he’s useful to Mack. He’s the only one able to keep up with him which is why he hasn’t been scratched. He’s the one person he felt like Mack needed to become that next hockey legend. That all changed when Mack went off to the Olympics. He played with Connor McDavid. How could he have thought he compared? He’s not special in the way that matters; an unspecial hockey player. He wishes he can go back to that fateful day in December and stop his injury from ever happening. His constant questioning of if he’s good enough slowly eats him alive and that feeling is what pushes him away from Mack. Making him forget to nurture their future. With this shift, Will begins to reflect on that time he left Mack alone. If he hadn’t gotten injured he would’ve been right there with Mack, improving his skills, instead of nursing a shoulder back to health and falling even further behind. He would’ve been with Mack at worlds as would’ve shown everyone why he was in the NHL. Why he was drafted 4th overall. Why he’s a big role in a franchise rebuild. That makes him stuck in the in-between while his fragile relationship he tried so hard to foster begins to die out. Both of them are becoming too different to work it out. And that difference is? Mack begins to climb even higher while Will continues to stumble behind.