The National Hockey League’s inaugural Four Nations Faceoff tournament took off in February, and the result was more than anyone could have hoped for. Since 1947, the NHL has hosted an “All-Star” game at the end of the season. This game brings some of the league’s best players together for a skills showcase and a 3v3 tournament. The point of this was to showcase all of the “star” players in all of the league’s 32 teams. Throughout the years, this tradition has become a bit redundant and does not gain as much recognition as it once did. The league realized this and decided to mix it up for 2025’s All-Star competition, thus the Four Nations Faceoff was created.
This tournament consisted of four teams to represent the four nations with the highest population in the NHL: Canada, Finland, Sweden, and the United States. The teams were made up of star players from the NHL who originated from that nation. Each team consisted of 23 players. The tournament was round-robin style, meaning that each team would play each other once to determine the two championship game teams.
The first set of games was played at the Bell Centre in Montreal. The first game was between Canada and Sweden. It ended with a victory for Canada in overtime with a goal from Toronto Maple Leafs right-wing Mitch Marner. The next day, the USA demolished Finland 6-1 in a thrilling game. Finland beat Sweden 4-3 with an overtime goal by Mikael Granlund of the Dallas Stars.
USA vs Canada came next and proved to be the most tense game yet. USA and Canada have always been pretty intense rivals when it comes to hockey, since Canada is where the sport originated. Tensions arose in the arena before the puck even dropped. During the playing of the USA’s national anthem, the Canadian fans stood up and booed the entire song. The booing overpowered the anthem to the point where you could barely hear it on the TV. This did not go over well with the audience, creating outrage in American hockey fans. Despite this, the game went on. It was full of crashing into the boards and goals. The result was a 3-1 victory for the United States. In my opinion, this game was probably the most fun game of hockey I’ve ever watched.
Soon after, the United States and Canada were set to play in the final tournament game. The stakes were high for this one because of their tense rivalry. It was, once again, an incredibly entertaining game of hockey. Canada was able to snatch the win back from the United States and secure the trophy, thanks to Edmonton center Connor McDavid’s overtime goal. The final score was 3-2.
This new tournament acquired 16.1 million viewers across all of North America. This kind of attention was great for the league. In the few weeks that the tournament took place, hockey was able to outshine basketball in viewership for the first time ever. The concept of the Four Nations Faceoff was widely favored by sports fans because it added a lot more competitiveness to the All-Star week, which was once just a skills showcase.
