After Trump-fueled brawls, Canada-US renew Olympic hockey rivalry

Rick Nash played in what many consider the rivalry's signature Olympic match: the gold medal game at Vancouver 2010. Canada won it.

"I don't think I slept the night before," Nash, a three-time Olympian and former National Hockey League star, told AFP.

Canadian hockey fans still cherish their country's image as the dominant hockey nation, recoiling at evidence the Americans are now an equal power.

When Canadian superstar Sidney Crosby scored in overtime to secure gold on home ice, it brought collective national relief.

When the puck went in, Nash leaped over the boards, joining his teammates in mobbing Crosby.

"It felt like a huge weight off our shoulders," said Nash, now an executive with his former team, the Columbus Blue Jackets. "That is the loudest arena I have ever played in."

The last 15 years have not produced equivalent Olympic tension.

Canada dominated the Sochi 2014 tournament, and NHL players did not go to the 2018 or 2022 Games, muting their importance.

Last year, the NHL organized the 4 Nations Face-Off, a new tournament with no historical weight, which hockey historian Eric Zweig told AFP initially looked set to be a "goofball" event.

But in the run-up to the February tournament, President Donald Trump launched a trade war and talked repeatedly about annexing Canada.

The hockey tournament quickly took on outsized significance.

– 'Awesome hockey' –

Canadians started booing the US national anthem at sporting events.

American hockey players took exception, leading to three fights in the early seconds of a US–Canada preliminary round game.

Trump then called the US team before the final, which Canada won in overtime.

"It was awesome hockey," Nash said. "I think we created a lot of momentum, a lot of buildup, going into these Olympics."

"I feel like we gained a lot of new fans from that whole tournament," he added.

That list may include Trump himself.

"How good were those games!" the president said to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney at the White House in October, nine months after the tournament, suggesting the slugfest made an impression.

"I'm not the biggest hockey fan," Trump said, but he called the US–Canada showdowns some of the greatest games he'd seen.

– 'Canadian tears' –

The United States and Canada may not play each other at the Milan-Cortina Olympics, although both sides are heavily favored to make the medal round.

If they do meet, the game would add to a rivalry older than the Winter Olympics, which began in 1924.

In the spring of 1920, ahead of the Antwerp Summer Games, organizers held a hockey tournament in the Belgian city, part of an early Olympic festival.

The European teams got demolished.

Canada beat Czechoslovakia 15–0 and the United States beat Sweden 29–0, astonishing scores in hockey.

Ahead of the April 25 US–Canada match, "people are jamming the streets before the game," as Belgians devised ways to sneak into a sold-out rink, Zweig said.

"Everybody knows this is going to be the best hockey game ever played in Europe."

Canada won 2-0 but over the 20th Century, the intensity of the North American Olympic rivalry eased.

The Soviet Union, and later Russia, became Canada's main adversary and the NHL, growing as a professional league, did not send its players to the Olympics until 1998.

Nash, born in 1984, said that for him Russia was the biggest test growing up, but things began to shift when the United States and Canada met for the gold in Salt Lake City in 2002.

The rivalry "took another step" after the ferocious tournament last year, he said.

US Olympic broadcaster NBC has released an ad for the 2026 Games starring actor Jon Hamm making an emotive speech to the US men's hockey team.

"You're going to Milan to bring home the greatest prize of all," Hamm says, with the star US player Jack Eichel replying: "Canadian tears."

Public focus may be on a potential US-Canada grudge match, but Nash stressed the teams have different priorities.

"As a player, I can guarantee you, the only thing on your mind is a gold medal. You don't care if it's Norway, Latvia, the US or whoever."