When Canadian ice hockey centre Connor McDavid scored in overtime to lead Canada to victory over the United States in the National Hockey League’s 4 Nations Face-Off tournament in February, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau posted on social media, “You can’t take our country — and you can’t take our game.”
Trudeau’s comment was a direct response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s repeated denigration of the prime minister as the “governor” of the “51st state.” It captured the escalating tensions between the two countries over trade, tariffs and Trump’s threats to annex Canada.
Meanwhile, the tournament itself, which pitted the top Canadian and American players against one another for the first time in more than a decade, became a representation of these deepening political divisions and showed that hockey isn’t as politically neutral as is often suggested.
