BOSTON — When they played “O Canada” for the second time Thursday night at TD Garden, there were no American fans left in the arena to boo.
Instead, the Canadian men’s hockey team stood at the blue line, arm in arm, player and coach, wearing their championship hats while the maple leaf flag was lowered behind the 4 Nations Face-Off trophy as their national anthem reverberated across the Americans’ home ice. The fans who remained, many of them in their red Team Canada jerseys, sang along.
Connor McDavid scored at 8:18 of overtime to give Canada a 3-2 victory over the United States as the North American rivals turned what had been a tuneup for the 2026 Olympics into a geopolitical brawl over anthems and annexation as much as international hockey supremacy.
Or, to put it another way: It was the 51st U.S. state 3, Canada’s 11th province 2.
“You can’t take our country — and you can’t take our game,” Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau posted on the X social media platform in a cross-border callback to U.S. President Donald Trump’s chatter about turning one of his country’s closest allies into the 51st state.