David Finkel
Posted February 26, 2025
ALMOST BY ACCIDENT, the Canada-U.S. final of the National Hockey League’s “4 Nations Face-Off” became one of those iconic moments when sports intersects with international enmity. If you’re old enough to remember, historic examples include the 1968 Czechoslovakia-Soviet ice hockey game after Russian tanks crushed the Prague Spring, or the 1956 Hungary-Soviet Olympic water polo match with, quite literally, blood in the water. And there were India-Pakistan cricket matches that threatened to lead to war if statesmanlike heads hadn’t prevailed…
But this? The United States and Canada have had frequent national team ice hockey confrontations before – in fact, the women’s teams meet in the finals of almost every international competition – but not in the context of bitter political disputes or invasion threats. The two countries have been the closest allies, at least since the 19th century U.S. annexationist attempts fizzled.
Some of the players have dual citizenship, coaching staffs overlap, and superstars like Brad Marchand (Canada) and Auston Matthews (USA) are much-adored heroes of their league teams in Boston and Toronto, respectively.
The 4 Nations Face-Off (Canada, USA, Sweden and Finland) was improvised as a substitute for the traditional NHL All-Star Game, which in recent years had deteriorated almost to the unwatchable embarrassment of the NBA’s equivalent (another story). What initially looked a bit gimmicky caught on beyond the planners’ expectations – and then of course came Trump’s “51st state” rant and his planned tariffs that could wreck much of the Canadian manufacturing and lumber industries.
A Canada-U.S. final was widely anticipated, especially after a narrow U.S. victory over Canada in the preliminary round, but Canada barely qualified for the final with a skin-of-the-teeth overtime victory over a tough Sweden team. So it was a confluence of factors that combined to make the final the biggest spectacle in North American sports since the secular U.S. midwinter festival known as Super Bowl Sunday.
Trump, who probably doesn’t know the difference between offside and icing, spoke to the U.S. team before the final game and promised victory over “our 51st state.” At a time when Canadian tourists in droves are cancelling their U.S. winter vacations, and “Buy Canadian” campaigns are in full swing, it’s predictable how that went over.
If you care, you already know that Canada’s superstar Connor McDavid won the game with a thrilling overtime goal, and if you don’t then you won’t need to read any details here. A huge national celebration erupted instantaneously, as happened in (what was then) Czechoslovakia in ‘68 when they beat the Soviet team.
The near-sainthood of Wayne Gretzky, the NHL’s all-time scoring leader and perhaps Canada’s greatest sports hero after Gordie Howe, is turning to dust due to his closeness to Trump and his thumbs-up gesture to the U.S. players’ bench — as he being was introduced as Team Canada’s honorary coach, no less. And 170,000 Canadians have signed a petition to strip Elon Musk of his citizenship there.
Canadian media are understandably consumed with Trump’s threats, which in fact must be taken quite seriously although not literally. Tariffs would be devastating to Canada, and damaging to the U.S. economy too. The “51st state” posturing is hot garbage, but the threat to extort Canada’s vital minerals (like Ukraine’s) is real, and Canada’s vast and mostly Indigenous populated far north is a vulnerable potential target for both U.S. and Russian exploitation.
The 4 Nations Face-Off was good and mostly clean fun, and next year’s Winter Olympic confrontation is already much anticipated, but the real-world hostility and crisis that Trump and his gang have created is more than a televised entertainment spectacle.
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