Canada's Mark Stone, center, celebrates after a goal by Connor McDavid during first period of a 4 Nations Face-Off hockey game against Finland, in Boston on on Feb. 17.Charles Krupa/The Associated Press
Rogers is running a house ad during the 4 Nations Face-Off. It’s one of those gauzy, jingoistic numbers that Tim Hortons used to have cornered until they went international.
“Some countries say they love hockey” the ad goes, “But us? We own it.”
If that’s true, it’s because no one else wants the hassle.
Ownership means it’s presumed you will win every tournament you enter from junior up. The national vitality that we could use to build a tech sector is instead directed to worrying about our goalie problems.
This is wasted energy. It’s us telling us how great we are when we’re already convinced. We are the greatest. Didn’t you see the ad?
All the hockey moments we think of as enormous, from 1972 on, are strictly Canadian concerns. We don’t even own the biggest of them all. Based strictly on eyeballs, that would be the USA versus Soviet Union in Lake Placid. Canada didn’t even qualify for the medal round at that Olympics. We are a non-player in the sport’s greatest news event.
All to say that regardless of how much we tell ourselves that this stuff matters, it only really matters to us.
Until now.
On Monday, Canada advanced to the final of the 4 Nations tournament, beating Finland 5-3. That sounds like it was a good game. It wasn’t. Canada put a hurt on Finland early. The Finns repaid the Canadians by killing their confidence late. Somehow a 4-0 game became a 4-3 game in the last two minutes.
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Every Canadian homer will say that it was the first part that matters, but that’ll be another hockey lie we tell ourselves. If you can’t kill a game, then you can’t get rid of anyone. The U.S. team will enter Thursday’s match-up the favourite everywhere from Las Vegas to the home dressing room to the stands.
Only one thing augurs in Canada’s favour – context.
Canada is the only place in the world where hockey has any. Maybe they had it in the Soviet Union once upon a time, but then we beat them and they reverted to Year Zero. Then we thrashed them again and The Wall came down.
However much they love the game, the Swedes or Finns are not going to have a national crisis of confidence over the fact that they didn’t make this final. Their hockey context is fluid. When they win, it’s amazing, and when they lose, it’s okay. They’ve got other things going on.
No one who’s any good at it has less hockey context than America. They won a big one 45 years ago and made a weepy movie about it that was a hit. That’s how America shrink wraps its history – have a fight, let Hollywood explain how America actually came out on top, or the better, or learned its lesson (especially if it didn’t) and that’s it. On to the next.
Though they don’t win much of anything – one Olympic gold this century on the men’s or women’s side – American players never shut up about U.S.A. versus Canada being the greatest rivalry in hockey. They’ve said it so often that even Canadians have started saying it.
Except who cares deeply about U.S.A. hockey in the U.S.A.? Nobody. Americans have no context for such a claim. Is it the greatest rivalry? They have no clue. The vast majority don’t care at all. This frees the players to say whatever they like.
America wins and AMERICA. America loses and, oh well, they’ll be great again.
But not this time. This time there is context.
Because of the anthem booing, people who would not normally have any idea that this tournament is going on now know that America has fought Canada in a skirmish and won. Even foreigners reported it. This is turning into a ‘U-S-A, U-S-A’ opportunity.
That works two ways. Everybody now knows Canada has trod on the flag.
“We needed to send a message,” America’s Matthew Tkachuk said about the three-rounder that started Canada-USA 1.0.
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What he actually means is that they needed to respond to a message. Fair play to them – they did. But now Canada gets a chance to retort. The second round of messaging will be the one people remember.
If this is hockey turning into a patriotic inflection point, then that’s advantage: Canada. The last time America was in a game like this – the aforementioned Miracle on Ice – they didn’t even broadcast it live. That’s how much context they want.
On Thursday night, Canada will feel like it must win. For the first time in a very long time, so will the U.S. To do anything less, especially at home, will make them seem a bit ridiculous.
This won’t be about who has the more complete forward lines. It will be about pressure and history. Who feels it, who wants it, who can carry the weight of it.
When Canadians say things like ‘This is our game,’ that’s presumably what they mean. Not that we play it, but that we play it best when it matters most. Which, for us, is always.
If the Americans win, they will treat it as a big deal. Again, no context. Win or lose, Canada will treat it as the amuse-bouche before the chef’s menu at Milan 2026.
If the bigger goal here is to keep the sporting undercurrents of Us versus Trump running strong, losing would be the better option. Losing excites people a lot more than winning. Winning is a temporary joy. Losing is an endless frustration. You can’t feel good again until you’ve had your next chance to win. That would begin in 359 days.
But if they lose, more Americans than ever before will feel the same way. None of this may end well, but it’s already a lot more interesting than us talking to us about ourselves again.