It turned out to be fitting former UFC superstar Georges St-Pierre was selected to introduce Team Canada as the players skated onto the ice at the Bell Centre before Saturday night’s 4 Nations Face-Off showdown against Team USA.
The start of the game could have been held in a UFC octagon instead of a hockey rink.
Two seconds after the puck dropped, Team USA’s Matthew Tkachuk dropped the gloves and fought with Canada’s Brandon Hagel. At the three-second mark, Tkachuk’s brother, Brady, fought Canada’s Sam Bennett. Nine seconds into the game, Team USA’s J.T. Miller and Canada’s Colton Parayko got into a fight.
After the game — which Team USA ended up winning 3-1 — Team Canada head coach Jon Cooper was asked if there was one word he could use to describe what happened.
“Mayhem,” he said. “That was the first minute.”
Matthew Tkachuk said his decision to drop the gloves as soon as the puck dropped had nothing to do with Bell Centre fans loudly booing the U.S. national anthem before the game in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff attack on Canada and his wish to make Canada the 51st state.
Instead, Tkachuk said the fights were planned during a group chat earlier in the day between him, his brother and Miller.
“I think the message we wanted to send is: It’s our time,” Tkachuk said.
“To us, this is as big of a game as it gets,” he added. “And a chance to knock off Canada in Canada on a Saturday night in Montreal in that type of environment, it was incredible. It was fun to start like that. It’s just a group of guys that are fired up to play their biggest rivals in this type of environment, so we had an absolute blast from the start.”
It marked the first time since the round-robin portion of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics that Team USA has beaten Canada in a best-on-best game, ending Canada’s 17-game winning streak.
“We’re in a hostile environment and we wanted to show that we’re not backing down,” Matthew Tkachuk said. “They’ve had so much success over so many years over there. They’re some of the best players in the world. We felt in this environment it was a good time to do it. It was a lot of fun.
“You’ve got to give credit to those guys as well,” Tkachuk added. “They did the exact same thing that we did. I thought it was great energy from both sides, and the building was shaking after the third one.”
The building was shaking all day.
There were 19,724 fans in attendance for an afternoon game that saw Finland beat Sweden 4-3 in overtime. There was a sellout crowd of 21,105 for Canada vs. the U.S. with tickets two rows behind the benches priced at $6,150 on the online resale market about an hour before the game.
The Canadiens’ Patrik Laine picked up two assists for Finland in the win over Sweden.
“I think Canadiens games are better since they’re only cheering for us,” Laine said when asked about the lively atmosphere for the Finland-Sweden game. “Now it was kind of half-and-half. But for an afternoon game, I think it was pretty good. But nothing compares to the Canadiens games.”
The night-time Canada vs. USA game went to a level a Canadiens game could never reach — unless maybe it was a Stanley Cup final.
“The start was like nothing I’ve ever seen before,” Team Canada goalie Jordan Binnington said. “We showed how much heart we have in this group and, unfortunately, it was a tight game and we didn’t come out on top.”
Canada’s next game will be Monday in Boston against Finland (1 p.m., SN, TVA Sports). Team USA clinched a spot in Thursday’s final (8 p.m., SN, TVA Sports) with Saturday’s win. If Canada beats Finland in regulation time it would clinch a rematch with Team USA in the final. In this tournament, teams are awarded three points for a regulation-time win, two points for an overtime win and one point for an OT loss. Canada, Sweden and Finland all have two points heading into their final games of the round-robin portion of the tournament. Canada beat Sweden 4-3 in OT in its first game.
“We showed a lot of heart tonight and we know what it takes to win,” Binnington said. “The guys in this room know what it takes to win. So it’s just all-in, one game at a time.”
Canada’s Sidney Crosby said Saturday’s game was as fast and intense as any game he has ever played in. That’s saying something since Crosby has won three Stanley Cups, an Olympic gold medal and the World Cup of Hockey.
When Team USA head coach Mike Sullivan was asked about the three fights in the first nine seconds of the game, he said: “I just think it’s very indicative of what this means to the players. There’s two teams out there that are very competitive, that have a ton of pride for their respective teams and their countries.”
Sullivan added: “What an incredible hockey game.”
It really was.