How do we Talk about the 4 Nations Face-Off?
The in-season, best-on-best, international tournament featured the second most-watched hockey game of the decade. It was also shamelessly, unavoidably politically charged.
BOSTON — Every time I sit down to write about the 4 Nations Face-Off, a task I’ve attempted at least 35 times this week, I feel my brain breaking in a new and exciting way.
It’s a conversation I’ve been having with respected colleagues all over the league: How do we do this?
How do we give the correct flowers to a tournament that started out as a “throw it at the wall and see what sticks” All-Star game replacement, and ended up featuring the second most-watched hockey game in North America this decade? How do we properly contextualize that scope, knowing the novelty and lack of international hockey recently is a part of the thing?
I don’t have the answer, but I know it’s not taking a crumb of positive momentum and using it to shit on the NBA. I fear we aren’t beating the little brother allegations with stuff like this. Meanwhile, NBA legend Charles Barkley was on TNT in a team USA jersey showing love and respect to hockey.
How do we acknowledge the bigger, uglier, part of the thing? I had the time of my life covering the championship game between USA and Canada. It was an epic celebration of the game of hockey, a desperate search for time and space, and the best sporting event I’ve ever been to.
It was also the most relieved I’ve ever been to see the away team win. I know, as a reporter who at least tries to have integrity, I need to be careful saying something like that. Over the years, I’ve rooted for good stories, good people, and good quotes, but never a specific team. And I don’t really think this was that, or some attempt at an edgy, anti-American statement.
It’s just that in a world constantly trying to tell me 2+2=5, it’s a relief to be still grounded in the fact that hockey is Canada’s game.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the many times I’ve visited the country. I once spent a day in Carp, Ontario with NHL defenseman Calvin de Haan — he’d bragged about his hometown’s title of “friendliest place in the world,” and the title held up. His dad picked us up at the fancy hotel in a well-used pickup truck, and everyone totally indulged in the crossing guard holding up traffic for the schoolchildren. I thought about how so many Canadians have welcomed me with open arms over the years, proud to show me the quirks and charms of the place that birthed my favorite sport.
There’s the cab drivers in Banff delighted to invite a first-timer to industry night shenanigans, the colleagues willing to get dinner and drinks with me on random weeknights rolling into town, the Canucks fans who just know how much I love their city, and the Canadiens fans who remind me how seriously they take the sport.
My friend and media colleague Julie Stewart-Binks once introduced to me the concept of “glimmers,” of noticing the good things that happen just as much as you notice the bad so you don’t go totally insane.
Team USA head coach Mike Sullivan was asked if there was political motivation for USA to win the championship game. This was the day after GM Bill Guerin went on Fox and Friends, an inherently political thing to do no matter what he said on the right-wing “entertainment” channel.
“I’m not sure the political environment has anything to do with what’s going on in the ice. I think there’s a certain pride both Canada and the United States have for representing their country and what it means for all the players,” Sullivan started. “My feeling from being around this American team is that this group has an awful lot of pride for being American, but also a lot of pride for American hockey, which has developed and grown exponentially over their lifetime. These guys, that represent that, they feel a certain responsibility to put their best game on the ice. These players are invested, and I think because of that, you’re seeing the emotionally charged games that you’re seeing out there.”
Pride for growing the game in the United States is something I can get behind, and it’s something that happened this week. There will be thousands of new, young fans invested in the game I’ve spent my life loving, and growing the game in America means more, much-needed diversity.
There’s a bright, brave, outspoken American kid out there somewhere who fell in love with the game itself this week. Maybe he’ll start playing and realize he can change the sport and the world.
Another glimmer? The NHL did something right and became the most relevant big four sport at the exact right time.
“This deserves to be talked about,” Adam Fox told me. And he’s right.