BOSTON -- When "O Canada" played for the second time Thursday night, there were no American fans left in the arena to boo.
Instead, the Canadian players and coaches stood at the blue line, arm in arm, wearing their championship hats while the maple leaf flag was lowered behind the 4 Nations Face-Off trophy and 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 on Thursday night 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.
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The already-ripe rivalry took on added intensity with the cross-border animosity after U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff threats and talk of making Canada the 51st state. Trump called the American team Thursday morning to wish it well, then turned to social media with another jab at Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about annexation.
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Trump wrote on Truth Social earlier Thursday that he planned on calling Team USA while later adding that "on toward victory tonight against Canada ... will someday, maybe soon, become our cherished, and very important Fifty First State."
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"You can't take our country -- and you can't take our game," Trudeau posted on social media after Canada's victory.