The highly anticipated 4 Nations Face-Off between the U.S. and Canada on Saturday night quickly escalated into a brawl, with several players dropping their gloves in response to boos during “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The Americans secured a 3-1 victory at the Bell Centre in Montreal, but U.S. defenseman Zach Werenski expressed his displeasure over the booing during the national anthem. This trend of boos has been noted in the NHL since President Trump announced tariffs on Canada, which have since been put on hold. The president has also jokingly suggested that Canada could become the “51st state.”
Despite the ongoing boos, Werenski stated, “We knew it was going to happen. It happened the last game, it’s been happening in the NHL before this, and we knew tonight was going to be the same way. We obviously don’t like it.” The U.S. had also faced boos prior to their game against Finland, which they won 6-1. “It is what it is,” Werenski remarked. “We kind of had an idea. We used it as motivation the best we could and found a way to get a win. But we had an idea going into it, so it wasn’t a surprise. Definitely don’t like it, though.”
The game saw three fights break out within the first nine seconds. Matthew Tkachuk clashed with Brandon Hagel right off the opening faceoff, while his brother Brady engaged with Sam Bennett, and J.T. Miller fought Colton Parayko. Brady Tkachuk explained to ESPN that his brother’s fight “happened pretty organically,” noting that Matthew expressed a desire to confront Hagel as soon as he learned the starting lineup. Hagel remarked that the fight was “a long time coming” between him and Matthew Tkachuk.
Conor McDavid opened the scoring for Canada, but the U.S. quickly responded with a goal from Jake Guentzel. Dylan Larkin then scored in the second period to give the U.S. the lead, followed by Guentzel sealing the game with an empty-net goal. “It’s just unbelievable, the atmosphere, to play on this stage in Canada; that was pretty cool for all of us, I think,” Guentzel said. “There’s a lot of excitement from our team coming out for warmups and just seeing how packed it was. That was pretty special.
