Political turmoil between two long allies spilled onto the ice Saturday night as Canada and the United States squared off in the NHL’s 4 Nations Face-Off.
After hockey fans at Montreal’s Bell Centre booed the American anthem and sang the Canadian one loud, the puck dropped at centre ice and so too did the mitts, as Matthew Tkachuk challenged Brandon Hagel to a fight off the opening faceoff — the first of three in the first nine seconds of the game.
Hagel had the upper hand on the elder Tkachuk brother, but the younger wanted to get in on the action, too, as right off the next faceoff, he and Sam Bennett dropped the mitts. Brady got the better of Bennett in this scrap earning a takedown — but the action wasn’t done there.
The puck finally dropped for actual play, but six seconds later, after the Americans had a shot on Canadian goaltender Jordan Binnington, players from both sides crowed in front of the net. Quickly, it was Canadian Colton Parayko and American J.T. Miller dropping the gloves with referees soon splitting up the tired combatants.
Fights in international hockey don’t happen often, if at all, given that such events hosted by the IIHF don’t allow fighting. Referees can eject players who do, and further supplementary discipline can be imposed, too. But since the 4 Nations Face-Off is an NHL-sanctioned event and played under their rules, five-minute majors are handed out for each player who fights.
In the case of Miller and Parayko’s fight, however, the former got an instigator penalty, sending Canada to an early power play. While they didn’t convert there, they did get on the board five and a half minutes into the game, when Connor McDavid broke into the offensive zone flipping a backhand past Connor Hellebuyck.
Jake Guentzel would score just over 10 minutes into the first frame, and the score remained tied at the time of writing, after the first period.
Zach Laing is Oilersnation’s associate editor, senior columnist, and The Nation Network’s news director. He also makes up one-half of the DFO DFS Report. He can be followed on Twitter, currently known as X, at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@thenationnetwork.com.
