It’s hard to put a finger on the true stakes of Thursday night’s 4 Nations Face-Off final in Boston.
After all, this tournament didn’t exist a year ago and, up until just about a week ago, was one people doubted anyone would care about — including the players participating.
The entire concept of the thing felt a little half-baked from its initial announcement last February. NHL players from just four nations (USA, Canada, Sweden and Finland) taking a mid-season break to compete in a four-day, seven-game tournament that awards a trophy nobody knows the name of?
Sure, I guess.
A cynic could call it a cash grab of exhibition games or a watered down preview of the international event that everyone can agree really matters: the 2026 Winter Olympics.
At the very least, 4 Nations was always going to be more interesting than the events it took the place of this NHL season — a Skills Competition and an All-Star Game. One cannot deny that the vibe of the old weekend format had become more obligation than celebration.
USA vs. Canada hockey: Who will be the American stars in the 4 Nations Face-Off championship game?
Austin Nivison
But any cynical chirps of the new event quieted pretty quickly and emphatically. The tournament’s first six games provided an eye-popping level of entertainment and commitment from everyone involved, and now there is one certainty:
People will care about Thursday’s final between the United States and Canada. A lot.
Much of that is thanks to the precursor, an insane Saturday night spectacle in Montreal. Most sports fans with an internet connection have probably seen the “mayhem” of that game — the first meeting of USA and Canada’s best pro talent in nine years.
One booed anthem in a politically-charged protest. Two American brothers with a plan. Three violent fights in the first nine seconds of the game.
What a way to set the stage.
And if Canada was considered Big Brother heading into that game, this opening act felt like Little Brother coming home after a long break and sending the message that they’re not interested in those kinds of titles anymore.
There’s a little irony in the fact that the primary messengers were an actual big brother (Matthew Tkachuk) and little brother (Brady Tkachuk) putting their faces at the forefront of USA’s new identity.
It all made for incredible theater, especially when the following act featured the most talented player on the planet — Canada’s Connor McDavid — responding by delivering the best goal of the tournament, one that drew first (figurative) blood and instilled renewed confidence in the (mostly) home crowd north of the border.
Unfortunately for Canada and its fans, that was basically the only wound the United States suffered in a 3-1 victory that left the long-reigning kings of the hockey world stunned.
Wait, had the Americans sneakily surpassed Canada as hockey’s new top power after all these years?
Probably an outrageous question to ask after one game, especially given Canada’s loooong list of success at the international level — including a gold medal at the last two Winter Olympics to feature NHL players, in 2010 and 2014.
Canadians will still tell you it’s their game. They’ll be quick to remind you that they’ve got the most trophies/medals and the highest percentage of NHL players (although that share continues to shrink, and the 41% mark registered this season is an all-time low). They can also still claim edge in upper-echelon talent, as they have the last two MVP winners (McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon) and one of the most decorated international superstars of all-time (Sidney Crosby).
All pretty good reasons to shoot down overly cocky Americans after one game.
But the truth is there’s been much talk about the United States’ growing hockey presence and how much they’ve shrunk the talent gap between themselves and Canada in the long period of international best-on-best darkness.
There continues to be a steady stream of high-end talent coming out of American programs, and many are finally getting their first opportunity to represent their country (and its growth in the sport) at the top level with this tournament.
And while the tournament may not be inherently “important,” it’s clear that the opportunity to showcase how far the USA has come as a hockey country holds importance.
Saturday could have signaled a seismic shift for the sport and its visibility.
There’s a familiar truth for hockey-obsessed Americans, including myself: We often have to accept that our favorite sport is typically recognized as the smallest and least-embraced of four beloved children in the United States. And often, it’s barely recognized at all.
But as a result of the USA’s electrifying win over Canada in the round robin, it was clear that something drew a whole lot more people to the party than the usual crowd of hockey psychos.
Perhaps a lack of other appealing sports viewing options — I’m being told the NBA’s All-Star Saturday offering was not exactly a party of lit fireworks — helped these numbers along, but let’s consider some other potential influences.
Maybe it was the pure talent involved, and the long wait to see international best-on-best. A first look at peak McDavid and MacKinnon against the Americans? Another chance to catch Crosby adding to his legacy? A young United States squad being called by some (including “Miracle On Ice” legend Mike Eruzione) “the best collection of American talent ever put on the ice?”
All compelling sales pitches for those who know even a little puck.
Or maybe it was the rivalry factor. USA and Canada have a long history of intense international competition on both the men’s and women’s sides. Then of course there’s the tense geopolitical strife around tariffs and annexation, which helped fuel Canadian willingness to boo the American anthem at almost every given opportunity.
People love an opportunity to feel proud of their country while taking jabs at someone else’s, especially sports fans desperate for distraction in weird times.
But if those weren’t enough of a sell, I hope we can be honest here …it was most likely the violence. Sports fans or otherwise, people love to watch people punch other people in the face, especially when nobody’s getting arrested for it.
There’s nothing wrong with that, and it’s often a gateway drug to the sport of hockey. Violence and animosity tend to make sports more compelling, and hockey seems to embrace that more than some of its big competitors.
Whatever got those new eyeballs to the first meeting helped create enough of a buzz to give the tournament a real, undeniable pulse, one that we weren’t sure it would ever hold. A pulse that has only been amplified by the impending rematch that will close things out.
The truth probably should have been clear all along: If you let the best players in the world represent their country, you can expect them to intensely compete and care about what that opportunity represents — even if it’s just bragging rights or an anonymous trophy.
USA’s Matthew Tkachuk and Jack Eichel both said this week that Thursday’s final might be the most important game they will have ever played. And this is coming from a couple of guys who’ve skated with the Stanley Cup in recent years.
And while some truly committed haters may still choose not to care about 4 Nations given its likely one-off nature, its lack of inclusion (sorry, Russia and everyone else left out) or its small sample, the people who matter most — the ones playing in it — have convinced the rest of us it’s worth investing in, especially since it’s the first of many international rivalry showdowns in the coming years.
Not only will similar versions of these two squads meet in the 2026 Winter Olympics next year, the NHL also used this tournament to announce plans to reinstate the World Cup of Hockey in 2028. If all goes according to plan, hockey fans will get to see best-on-best international hockey every other year starting in 2026. Buckle up.
By doubling down with a win in the final, USA has an opportunity to emphatically announce that they’re going to be a major problem to match up with in this new era.
By evening the score in the final, Canada can remind USA to not get too ahead of themselves.
So, it doesn’t really matter how much anyone will care about a one-off, replacement-level, mid-season tournament in a few weeks time. What matters is this final matchup has plenty of juice and its tournament has meant a lot to a lot of people — even some who are surprised at their own interest.
For those of us who truly love the game and know what it can be at its very best, we spent nine years waiting for that first meeting on Saturday. And while it’s hard to say if any of it was worth the wait when we don’t know what we may have lost in the near-decade absence, it’s surprisingly easy to say it lived up to the hype.
Yet somehow the five days of waiting for the sequel have maybe felt more challenging and excruciating. And that’s how you know this thing has been unbelievably good.
Who needs stakes, anyway?
