BOSTON — The Americans said it was their time, but the Canadian’s reminded them it was their game.
An advertisement for Team Canada circulated back in Montreal,“Notre équipe. Notre sport,” which translates to “Our team. Our game.”
And the Canadians played to that mantra in a 3-2 overtime win over the United States, in order to uphold their 15-year run as best-on-best champions by adding the first ever 4 Nations Face-off trophy to an already-crowded cabinet.
The last of the four nations standing, thanks to Connor McDavid’s OT winner.
As the winner of five of the previous six best-on-best international hockey tournaments, as well as nine of the 13 overall involving NHL players, going back to the 1976 Canada Cup, it should come as no surprise it’s Canada.
They’ve won many times, won many gold medals and trophies, but something else was on the line for Canada Thursday night.
As much as both sides have said the political climate between the two nations has had no influence on the matchup, Canadian fans watching at home were certainly pulling for their players to stick it to the country whose president, Donald Trump, has repeatedly called them the 51st state.
“I’m a hockey coach. Am I aware of what’s going on around the world? I am,” Canada head coach Jon Cooper said before the final. “I think when you’re in the position we’re in to make a country proud, to make a country be able to stick its chest out a little bit farther, that’s rewarding. And we understand that. But—and I’m probably going to speak for the U.S. team—before that puck drops, I don’t think anybody will be thinking outside of this hockey game other than winning that game.
“Do we all know what it means? We do. But that hasn’t entered into our locker room. These guys are just all in it for each other and knowing that there’s an outcome we want but there’s a process we need to go through to get that outcome. And when it’s all said and done, if we pull this off, we’ll know what this will have meant for everybody at home and we’re very cognizant of that.”
