Now that the 4 Nations Face-Off is over, it’s time to focus on the only hockey that matters. Philadelphia Flyers hockey.

Jokes aside, congrats to Travis Sanheim and Travis Konecny on their medals, even though TK was the odd man out. Honest to God, he seemed like the type of player that Canada could have used in this tournament, but they won the whole thing anyway when Auston Matthews had the brilliant idea of leaving Connor McDavid wide open in front of the net in overtime. A classic, Toronto Maple Leaf type of ending.

Here’s the thing, and I’m gonna get killed for this, but I don’t care –

Team USA’s win in Montreal was more impressive than Team Canada’s win in Boston. Yeah, sure, Canada won the tournament. The first was a round robin game and the second was the title game. USA won the game that didn’t matter and Canada won the game that did matter. But anybody with two eyeballs who watched both games saw the U.S. go into Canada’s barn, drop the gloves on the opening faceoff, then knock those guys around for three whole periods. It was super impressive. On the return leg, Canada needed four periods and five minutes of Jordan Binnington looking like prime Marty Brodeur out there. Playing their #1 sport, they required overtime and a defensive brain fart to beat a less than full-strength USA squad.

When you go through the replies on social media and read the various stories, you see how much it means to our northern neighbors. This is their sport, and the pressure is on them to win every time they take the ice. It’s no different than Manchester City or Alabama football or Duke basketball or any traditional power in any sport. And with it comes the unforgiving, lose/lose situation that you sometimes see in one-sided rivalry games, mostly at the collegiate level.


Example:

When Penn State plays Pittsburgh, Penn State is expected to win. Why? Because Pitt stinks. They’re an in-state rival but totally mid ACC team. So if the Nitters win, congrats, they were supposed to, and if they lose, they suffer the embarrassment of losing to Pat Narduzzi.

That’s not to say we don’t have a great team, because we obviously do, full of NHL stars. Team USA is not Pitt football in talent terms, but Canada isn’t supposed to lose to anyone in hockey. And the stone cold truth is that this tournament didn’t mean half as much to us as it did to them. Hockey might not even be a top-five sport in the U.S. in 2025. The main reason this tournament got as much attention as it did is because Donald Trump threatened Canada with tariffs and trolled an ally and joked about turning them into the 51st state.* The Canucks were riled up, and justifiably so. That added a theatrical, political element to 4 Nations that was good for cheap engagement but resulted in the nonsensical booing of national anthems and the insertion of a temporary MAGA demographic that doesn’t even watch hockey. You had corny politicians chirping each other online and all sorts of faux-patriotic jockeying on either side of the International Boundary.

But here’s the thing – if you took out all of the unnecessary political stuff, it was great hockey. Some of the best players in the world playing a midseason tournament that trounced whatever slop the NBA put out there last weekend. International hockey is the best hockey and we don’t get to see enough of it. This feels like something they can build on and use to get some more eyeballs on the game, and real eyeballs, too, not the flimsy and fleeting eyeballs of partisan grifters. It was entertaining hockey and it was an enjoyable tournament.

*disclaimer: this is not a political post, if you support Trump, fine, if you supported Kamala, fine, but you cannot deny the density of the political storm clouds hovering over the tournament