Hockey was served over a dish of politics over the last week as Team USA and Team Canada twice competed against each other in the NHL's 4 Nations Face-Off tournament, which also featured national teams from Finland and Sweden.
After the USA toppled Canada in a round-robin match last Saturday in Montreal, Canada came back to defeat the USA in overtime on Thursday in the tournament's championship game. The tournament marked the first time in nine years that the best hockey players from the U.S. competed against the best from Canada.
After Thursday's championship game, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took an apparent shot at President Donald Trump in a social media post.
"You can’t take our country — and you can’t take our game," he said.
The response came as President Trump has said numerous times that he would like the U.S. to annex Canada as a 51st state, a proposal Trudeau has said the U.S. leader is serious about.
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President Trump has also threatened to impose a 25% tariff on most Canadian imports, a move that economists say would devastate the Canadian economy, but could also make items more expensive for Americans.
The response Team USA received in Canada on Saturday was lukewarm, at best. During the U.S. national anthem in Montreal, a smattering of boos could be heard throughout the arena. Typically, when the U.S. anthem has been played in Canadian arenas, Canadians are known for singing along to the "Star-Spangled Banner."
President Trump also involved himself in the tournament. He called the team to wish players and coaches good luck prior to their face-off on Thursday.
Another way politics was involved in the tournament was that Russia was not represented in the tournament due to its ongoing conflict with Ukraine. Had the Russians been allowed to field a team, they might have been able to challenge Canada and the USA for a title, with star players Alex Ovechkin, Nikita Kucherov, and Andrei Vasilevskiy leading the way.
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Battles between the U.S. and Canada are expected to become more frequent on the ice in the coming years. The NHL has agreed to send players to the next Winter Olympics in 2026 and 2030. The NHL has also said it plans to help organize a Hockey World Cup every four years, starting in 2028.
“It meant a lot, putting the USA in the forefront of hockey,” U.S. goalie Connor Hellebuyck told NHL.com. “We have a great team in here, and it sucks to end like that.”
The U.S. has not won a "best-on-best" hockey tournament since the World Cup of Hockey in 1996.
