The Inescapable Politics of International Hockey

The NHL’s Four Nations Face Off, which wrapped up last week with a thrilling 3-2 overtime win for Canada over the US, was the first time in over a decade that most of us had gotten invested in international men’s hockey. As is tradition, we all briefly loved players we usually hate, and hated players we usually love. It’s part of the beauty of international hockey. When the games actually matter, you realize how many of the players on your team are of the type that’s very easy to hate when they‘re not wearing your colours anymore. But the nice thing about the Olympics - and now the Four Nations Face Off - is that eventually, those players come back and you get to laugh and feel glad that they’re back on your team.

For me, it feels a bit different this time.

The NHL, which tends to avoid political statements like the plague, accidentally scheduled their fun little international tournament for a time when tensions between Canada and the US were the highest they’ve been in living memory. Donald Trump’s new tariffs on Canadian goods and repeated threats to annex Canada have led to a surge in Canadian nationalism, with many people now making an effort to boycott American products, and booing the American anthem at sporting events. Amid these tensions, the Four Nations Face-Off took on a new meaning.

Obviously, nobody was watching the tournament thinking these hockey games would actually determine whether or not Canada would become an American state. But part of the power of sports is the meaning we assign to them. For instance, when cities or teams experience tragedy, rallying around the local sports team can feel like a way to bring the community together and heal. Commentators have compared the Four Nations Face Off to the 1972 Summit Series, where the Cold War was very much a factor in the on-ice tension between Canada and the Soviet Union.

For many Canadians, this tournament felt like an opportunity to express national pride, and to show the USA that they can’t push us around that easily. Never mind that many of our heroes on the ice have an array of political views themselves and are unlikely to experience the consequences of Trump’s threats against Canada; it was about the flag, the anthem, the meaning we ascribed to the games. 

The Americans played into it too. Trump repeated his threats of annexation in every comment he made about the championship game. American fans chirped Canadians by calling Canada the “51st state.” American right wingers suddenly got very into hockey; even Marjorie Taylor Greene shared clips from the round-robin game between the two teams - clips which heavily featured the Tkachuk brothers and their physical style of play.

This brings us to the crux of the issue for Sens fans. Brady Tkachuk has always been good at avoiding saying anything controversial. Despite being one of the league’s best shit-disturbers on the ice, off it his media training is obvious. It’s part of what makes him such a likeable player if he’s on your team. He always plays with emotion and intensity, and as a fan you can let that mean whatever you want. Brady has continued to stick to hockey in all of his media appearances during and since the tournament. The closest he got to addressing the political tension was his practice scrum yesterday, where he waved it all off as a sports rivalry and said he's glad to have Canadian fans on his side now. It's the best answer we could have reasonably expected from him, and yet it feels inadequate after everything his teammates were saying during the tournament.

Team USA GM Bill Guerin claimed his players had been emboldened by the political tensions and wanted Trump to attend the final game. Brock Faber outright said that he wanted to win the game for Trump. The Canadian players who were asked about the 51st state stuff knew exactly what was going on. Of course the Americans knew too. Surely they didn't have to support that part of the narrative. Would it really have been too much for them to say they still support Canadian sovereignty?

It doesn’t help that Brady Tkachuk played through an injury in the final, taking himself out for at least a few games while his team is hanging on to a playoff spot by a thread. It was nice to see how well Brady Tkachuk plays when the games matter, but it’s hard to ignore why that game mattered. Whatever the Four Nations Face Off might have meant to Brady Tkachuk personally, he and his team USA teammates briefly became symbols of American imperialism. Hockey fans are used to being disappointed in our favourite players’ political views, but that doesn’t make it sting any less. 

The bar is so, so low for political statements by professional athletes. We’re supposed to be okay with players who will gladly play alongside men accused of sexual assault or domestic violence, who have nothing to say about racism or homophobia or transphobia in their sport, and yet it feels like another level of absurdity to accept that we may never hear these players say they even believe in the sovereignty of the country they live and play in.

The little media tour the Tkachuks have been on since the gold medal game shows that more Americans are taking an interest in the sport. But as the NHL's audience continues to grow, and the American president continues to threaten Canada's sovereignty, it feels like the league and its players won't be able to keep avoiding political statements for much longer. A little reassurance would go a long way.