National pride was on display in the Canadian and American dressing rooms ahead of Thursday night’s 4 Nations Face-Off final between the rival national teams.
Although the players involved generally shrugged off questions from reporters about the heightened political tensions surrounding Thursday night’s championship game in Boston, the expressions on faces and the tones of voices took on decidedly different timbres.
On the U.S. side, decidedly chipper – perhaps because their country is hosting the final but also because the Americans beat Canada 3-1 in their round-robin match on Saturday.
Another reason: a morning phone call from U.S. President Donald Trump, a surprise gesture American players said was an honour.
“It’s the president of the United States. When you’re a kid, you don’t really (think) that’s ever going to be a possibility, but it’s really cool,” U.S. defenceman Brock Faber of the Minnesota Wild told media.
U.S. forward J.T. Miller echoed his teammate’s sentiment, saying it was “awesome to hear the support” from Trump, who officially took office a month ago after winning November’s presidential election.
“It was pretty cool. So awesome to hear the support,” said Miller. “It’s a pretty big deal for him to take time out of his schedule to talk to us for five minutes, and just another one of those things where we’re kind of pinching ourselves this tournament.
“It’s been really fun so far, and seeing the support from everybody up to the president, it’s been pretty wild.”
Trump had said on social media early Thursday he was going to talk to the U.S. squad in the morning to wish them good luck and “to spur them on towards victory tonight against Canada,” adding he won’t be at the game because he will be speaking with governors in Washington.
“We will all be watching, and if Governor Trudeau would like to join us, he would be most welcome,” Trump said.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt doubled down later Thursday when she said Trump was looking forward to watching the game and added: “We look forward to the United States beating our soon-to-be 51st state, Canada.”
While such comments may be seen by Canadians as a threat, there is no doubt that the political drama has greatly raised the profile of the 4 Nations tournament from an exhibition event ahead of the National Hockey League’s return to the Olympics next year after sitting out the last two Winter Games.
The NHL will allow its players to participate at the 2026 Milan and Cortina Olympics in Italy.
The 4 Nations tourney, the first international competition featuring the NHL’s biggest stars since the 2016 World Cup, has taken on increased significance thanks to the frosty relationship between the normally friendly countries, exacerbated by Trump’s threats of sweeping tariffs on Canadian products and repeated suggestions the U.S. should absorb Canada.
Repeatedly since being inaugurated, Trump has pushed the idea of Canada becoming the 51st state as part of his trade dispute with the country. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said that will never happen.
Canadian forward Brad Marchand told media after his squad’s morning skate he “(doesn’t) think there’s a place in the game” for politics, that the games are “a place for people to escape stuff.”
The 36-year-old forward and NHL career-long member of the Boston Bruins, though, said he’s aware of how important Thursday’s game is for fans in his home country.
“It’s always been something that when these games are on, everyone in the country sits down and watches them, and it’s all people talk about,” said Marchand, a native of Halifax.
“It gives people belief – whatever it is, whatever they’re looking for – and it brings everybody together, so it’s much larger than just a game.”
For a University of Alberta professor whose research focuses on sports media and on hockey and popular culture, though, sports and politics “have always been connected,” stretching back thousands of years to the times of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, when “sport was very political.”
The ancient Olympic Games, for example, saw city states reward athletes for victories with money, gifts and parades, while the Romans used sport “in all sorts of ways, from chariot racing to gladiator fights,” Prof. Stacy Lorenz said.
“The idea that sport and politics can ever be separated, I think, is just a fallacy, is just incorrect,” Lorenz, who works at the U of A’s Augustana campus in Camrose, told CTV News Edmonton on Thursday. “Sport and politics have always been connected, so in that sense, I’m not really surprised that a sporting event like the 4 Nations tournament has all of this political rhetoric and discussion attached to it.”
Lorenz said politics have long been “welcomed” into sports “by having things like national anthems and by having international sporting events that are based on national rivalries, based on our country vs. your country, our society better than your society.”
“We’ve always attached those meanings and identities to international sports in particular, so this is just another example of that, but it has risen to an even higher level,” he said.
Lorenz said there are aspects to the tournament that are “unique and extraordinary,” however, particularly it coming at a time when Trump is openly talking about annexing Canada.
“It is the way that we have, for the first time perhaps ever in Canadian history, an American president who is openly talking about ending Canadian independence,” Lorenz said.
“That has, to me, changed things from the normal sort of nationalism and identity that is always attached to sports but that we can usually keep in perspective.”
Trump’s actions on social media and his phone call to the team Thursday morning have transformed the 4 Nations tournament into something even bigger, Lorenz said.
“In this case, (the political tension has) risen to such a high level because of that specific way that President Trump has weaponized this hockey tournament as we saw this morning with his recent post on social media and speaking to the U.S. hockey team by phone, doubling down, tripling down, quadrupling down on this idea that Canada is not going to exist independently of the U.S. if he has his way,” he said.
“I don’t think we should be surprised that Canadians have reacted strongly to that.”
Team Canada head coach Jon Cooper said while he “feel(s) for everybody on our side of things,” making people back home proud is the primary motivation to beat the U.S. rather than the political tensions.
“For us to come here and to be in that room, it’s going to be more for us to win that game than sit there and debate what the game means,” Copper told media.
“We have to go out there and represent our country and make them proud. For us, if we accomplish that, then I think we accomplish what we want to, it’s to make Canadians proud.”
Beyond the five-minute pep talk from Trump, though, Faber – repeating the sentiments of several U.S. teammates as well as their Canadian counterparts – said the charged political climate hasn’t influenced their focus at the tourney.
“We’re here to win hockey games, right?” Faber said. “Regardless of what’s going on politically ... for us, U.S.A. and Canada have always hated each other on the ice. That’s how I look at it, I think that’s how all the guys look at it, nothing more than just the hatred we have for each other on the ice.”
Fans in both Montreal, which hosted the first half of the tournament, and Boston have heckled the rival country’s anthem.
Jeers rang through Montreal’s Bell Centre during The Star-Spangled Banner prior to U.S. games there, while the crowd at Boston’s TD Garden lightly booed O Canada before Canada’s eventual 5-3 win Monday over Finland to reach the final.
“We’re playing for our country, and we hope that (Canadians) feel that is, ultimately, what it’s all about,” Marchand said. “It’s about showing the pride and sacrifice that every Canadian feels every day to be Canadian, and we’re obviously here to represent that, so we hope they feel that.”
With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Jeremy Thompson and The Canadian Press
