Team USA and Canada dropped the gloves three times in the first nine seconds of their 4 Nations Face Off contest on Saturday night; it was the first time the two teams had played one another in a best-on-best format in nine years.
Two fights occurred within the first three seconds, with Matthew Tkachuk getting in the first one against Brandon Hagel, and his brother, Brady, fighting Matthew’s Florida Panthers teammate, Sam Bennett, in the second.
After a goalie stoppage, J.T. Miller found anybody who was willing, resulting in the third brouhaha. There were no fights for the remainder of the game, but the fisticuffs set the tone for what was a physical bout that ended in a 3-1 win for the Americans.
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The fights were the preamble to the most-watched NHL event outside a Stanley Cup Final since 2019, resulting in an average of 4.4 million viewers. The fights, without a doubt, grabbed the attention of novice fans everywhere, but not everyone was a fan of it.
Chris “Mad Dog” Russo called out the fights for being “fake”.
“I don’t like things that are pre-orchestrated. I don’t like things that have a fakeness or WWE feel to them. They had three fights in nine seconds, they all texted each other before the game … to have three fights in nine seconds,” Russo said on his radio show, via Awful Announcing. “I know the fans in the arena loved it, I know the fans at home got emotionally into the game right away.
“That to me was a joke. That was fake. ‘Let’s all drop the gloves and kill each other in the first nine seconds of the game.’ It wasn’t organic. It was pre-arranged. It was not something that came through a rugged hit, a dirty play, physicality in the course of 60 minutes … they set that up before the game. That’s fake. I didn’t like that.”
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Hagel shut down Russo’s claim recently, saying that he “didn’t fight for the cameras” but rather “for the [Canadian] flag.” Brady Tkachuk also said his brother’s fight “happened pretty organically.”
“Matthew said that he wanted to go first, it just happened, and now it’s over and done with,” he said. “It’s right when Matthew found out the starting lineup, he said that he wanted a piece of him (Hagel).”
The fights came shortly after the Canadian crowd booed “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which has been a theme recently up north against teams from the United States amid President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canada. The tariffs have since been paused. The president has also teased Canadians with the idea of Canada becoming the “51st state.”
While the USA and Canada have been on-ice rivals for decades, the political tension has certainly brought a new flavor to the crowds and perhaps the players as well.
The two teams face off again on Thursday, this time in Boston, for the 4 Nations title.
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