Brady Tkachuk of Team USA scraps with Canada’s Brandon Hagel.
Well, you’ve probably heard about it by now since it happened on Saturday and made headlines everywhere – Team USA and Canada got into three separate fights nine seconds into their game in something called the 4 Nations Face-Off, which is replacing the NHL All-Star Game.
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And now the stakes are even higher in the rematch – USA and Canada will meet in the championship game Thursday night. For what it’s worth, Finland and Sweden are the other two countries in the tournament.
Listen, I’ll be transparent as can be – I don’t know much about hockey, fully admit that. And when it comes to fights on the ice, that’s one of my favorites things in hockey – seeing the gloves come off and guys going at it, policing the sport in a different way than other sports.
But usually those fights occur because of something that happened in the game such as a vicious and illegal hit on a teammate, causing retaliatory punches to be thrown.
In the case of USA and Canada, that wasn’t the case, far from it. The first fight broke out two seconds after tipoff. The others happened seven seconds after that. Nothing in the game triggered the fisticuffs.
Whether the USA players will say it or not, they were upset with Canadian fans who booed our national anthem at the game that was played in Montreal. And why were they booing our anthem?
They’re not happy with President Donald Trump’s expected tariffs on Canadian imports and proposal for Canada to become the United States’ 51st state.
On Jason Puckett’s PuckSports.com podcast Monday, I said I didn’t understand why the USA players would be incensed enough to drop the gloves so soon after the puck dropped.
Under normal circumstances, I’d frown on anyone booing another country’s national anthem. But these are abnormal circumstances. I put myself in a Canadian’s shoes and thought: “Hey man, stop it already with your condescending bullshit. We’ve been great neighbors to the north. We’ve been your longtime ally and now you want us to become your 51st state? Piss off!”
Given that, if i were a Canadian, I would have booed our anthem too.
As one proud Canadian noted: “Why is the United States picking a fight with its closest trading partner and ally? From the perspective of everyone I know from Canada, they think the United States has lost its ever-loving mind.
“Canadians don’t want to become Americans. They relish their independence. It’s offensive to suggest that Canadians would simply give up their sovereignty.”
So that’s where I was coming from when I made my comments on Puck’s podcast, drawing negative feedback.
From Big Fn Berger; “I usually absolutely adore Jim Moore, but today on the subject of USA hockey, that was one of the most pathetic, unpatriotic and libtard comments I have ever heard. Talk about a guy who doesn’t get the pulse of the country. Lost a ton of respect for that guy today.”
From Randy Rhoads: “Didn’t know Jim was such a libtard. Disappointing. Can’t watch anymore.”
In their defense I violated an unwritten rule in sports radio, which no doubt carries over to sports podcasts too – you should never bring politics into a conversation because you’re going to turn off at least 50 percent of your audience. There’s no sense in that.
But this time I just couldn’t help it, the whole skirmish on ice was caused by something too stupid to ignore in my opinion.
And I’m not sure what the USA players proved with their fists when they were unprovoked by the Canadian players. They still chose to make what appears to be a political statement of their own by standing up for the United States.
“Our hockey team showed just how tough our country is the other night,” said Big Fn Berger.
For me it was more like a bully unnecessarily flexing his muscles, but what the hell do I know, I’m a libtard who parades around as a sheep instead of a lion because I cluelessly maintain that we have a bad human being who’s leading our country.
Then again, I realize I could be misguided with my cold take, particularly when someone like USA coach Mike Sullivan felt like it was an epic night for the sport.
“I thought it was an unbelievable celebration of hockey,’’ he said. “It could inspire another generation of players to play the game, like some of the events that impacted my generation, like the Miracle on Ice team in 1980.”
Let’s not go that far, Mike. Comparing your team to the huge underdog that upset the Russians in the Olympics?
This was more like a Debacle on Ice in 2025.
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For what it’s worth, I saw that fight and the cause behind it exactly the same way. Regardless of how a person feels about the politics, it was obviously the US team starting a fight over things completely outside of the game and they deserve to get called out for that. And if someone calls you a "libtard", you can be pretty confident you’re doing the right thing.
Normally I don’t necessarily like fighting in hockey, but when I watched Saturday I thought it was great. It got me jacked for the game. I think Canadians have a right to boo the US national anthem. Isn’t that what we stand for? The right to express yourselves and then take the consequences. Go Team USA.
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