A significant part of the stakes for Thursday night’s 4 Nations Face-Off championship game between Canada and the U.S. came from pregame media comments.
That covered political remarks on tariffs and threatened annexation from U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance, plus back-and-forth comments from players on both teams over the American team’s group chat. And both of those aspects resulted in for some strong trolling from Canadian politicians and players after Canada’s 3-2 overtime win.
On the political side, this fed into months of discourse over Trump’s imposition of 25 percent tariffs on all goods from Canada and Mexico (currently delayed until March), plus his repeated vows to make Canada “the 51st state.” Both Vance and Trump made such references pregame, with Trump even calling the U.S. team ahead of the game, which sparked pushback from the likes of Akim Aliu (directed at ESPN’s P.K. Subban for his uncritical amplification of Trump’s remarks) and pregame anthem singer Chantal Kreviazuk.
After Canada’s win, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau had quite the social media posts, in both French and English:
Vous ne pouvez pas prendre notre pays — et vous ne pouvez pas prendre notre sport.
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) February 21, 2025
You can’t take our country — and you can’t take our game.
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) February 21, 2025
Trudeau followed that up with Canadian women’s hockey legend (and current Toronto Maple Leafs’ assistant general manager) Hayley Wickenheiser’s famed quote after winning gold against the U.S. at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics: “The Americans had our flag on the floor in their dressing room, and now I want to know if they want us to sign it.”
What she said. pic.twitter.com/T12sP9FVsL
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) February 21, 2025
Whether there was actually a Canadian flag on the floor in 2002 remains debated, with both USA Hockey and Hockey Canada putting out a joint statement denying that after the fact. But that Wickenheiser quote remains an oft-shared one in Canada, especially around U.S. clashes, and it’s interesting to see the country’s leader post that on X in the wake of this win.
Beyond the political comments, there were a lot of (undisputed) media comments in the lead-up to this from players on both sides.
In particular, that came around U.S. players Matthew Tkachuk, Brady Tkachuk, and J.T. Miller revealing that they planned their three fights in nine seconds against Canada in the round-robin clash between these teams over a group chat, Canadian forward Brandon Hagel chirping back with, “We don’t have any group chats going on” and “We’re out there playing for the flag, not the cameras,” and Matthew Tkachuk responding, “Maybe their team doesn’t like each other then if they don’t have group chats.”
That was only part of Matthew Tkachuk’s pregame talk, which also included calling this the biggest game he’d played in (notable, considering that he just won the Stanley Cup in a Game 7 last year). And after the game, Canadian forward Brad Marchand (known for lots of on- and off-ice trolling over the years) had quite the return volley at the Tkachuks:
Brad Marchand on Tkachuk brothers: “Sometimes when you shoot your mouth off in the media, it bites you.”
— luke fox (@lukefoxjukebox) February 21, 2025
And in what was at least potentially further trolling, the Canadian locker room after the game was blasting Nickelback’s “Burn It To The Ground,” which got many thinking back to a certain historical incident (despite the troops involved being British regulars rather than Canadian militia, it’s still part of Canadian historical mythology) that Trump brought up with Trudeau in 2018:
Never forget. https://t.co/1qL07kwcaA pic.twitter.com/LvLjzlu9gd
— Jason P. (@JasonPYYC) February 21, 2025
A tribute to the War of 1812, clearly https://t.co/MvKhQIvGLC
— Bruce Arthur (@bruce_arthur) February 21, 2025
This is far from the first Canada-U.S. sporting event to feature a lot of trash talk, something also seen in women’s hockey, women’s soccer, and sprinting amongst other places. But it certainly showed up in force here, and added to the wild interest in this game and this tournament. And it should make for some more on the line when these teams again (likely) face each other in best-on-best play at the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics.
