The Impact of the Four Nations Tournament on the Hockey and Sports World

By: James Ferreira

Tampa’s Nikita Kucherov participates in the 2024 NHL All-Star Skills Competition.

Every year, around late January or early February, the regular NHL schedule goes on a one-week break to host the All-Star competition. Typically, a host city is designated a little under a year before the event, and the best players from around the league participate in various skills challenges and a 3 on 3 tournament for a cash prize. However, annoyance has grown around this concept in recent years due to its casualness. Fans grew tired of players not really caring about competing, and began to feel a longing for a more intense showing of the league’s best skill.

On February 2nd, 2024, the entire concept of the All-Star Game was flipped on its head; league commissioner, Gary Bettman, announced the Four Nations Tournament that would replace the traditional 3 on 3 tournament and take place in February 2025. The event would consist of four of the biggest hockey nations in the world— Canada, the United States, Sweden, and Finland— and include preliminary play. The final game would be a single-elimination championship game between the teams with the two best records.

The announcement was the first time “best-on-best” international hockey would happen since the World Cup of Hockey in 2016, which was extremely successful. The Four Nations was an ambitious project by the league, and certainly did not lack controversy at first. The main complaint that fans had about the concept was regarding the countries competing. They claimed that it wasn’t really best-on-best international competition if other prominent hockey nations, such as Russia, Czechia, and Germany, were not included. This was partially true; top talents in the league, such as Nikita Kucherov (Russia), David Pastrnak (Czechia), and Leon Draisaitl (Germany) would be barred from competing. While people initially had concerns about the tournament’s legitimacy, it surged in popularity when it began.

The first game of the tournament took place at Bell Centre in Montreal, and was an overtime thriller in which Canada defeated Sweden 4-3. The energy from this tournament was immediately different from that of previous years’ all-star games. This year, the players actually cared. Competing for national pride, they had everything to lose if they failed to properly represent their country, and everything to gain if they won. This resulted in an ultra-competitive environment during games, and in turn, resulted in the fans getting more and more excited to watch games. Eventually, the most anticipated matchup of the preliminary round came, where the USA faced Canada in Montreal. The game began with an event that would make a huge splash on social media, and become one of the most impactful parts of the tournament. As soon as the puck dropped, USA’s Matthew Tkachuk and Canada’s Brandon Hagel fought. This by itself would have been incredibly exciting, however, more was to come. Directly after, Matthew’s brother, Brady, dropped the gloves with Sam Bennett of Canada, and then JT Miller with Colton Parayko. In total, three fights happened in the first nine seconds of the game.

Brandon Hagel (left) fighting Matthew Tkachuk (right)

The US took the game 3-1, but what followed online was huge for the game of hockey as a whole. Videos surfaced showing the action from the game. People made videos comparing the laid-back, indifferent attitude of the NBA and NFL all-star games with the war happening on the ice. Suddenly, a reinvigorated energy was born that hadn’t been seen for the sport in years. As the tournament continued, new eyes were brought to hockey, and it experienced a surge in popularity.

The tournament concluded with a rematch of the USA-Canada game for the championship at TD Garden in Boston, one of the most anticipated hockey games held in recent years. The game was even, skillful, and physical. It was a constant battle back and forth the entire time, having a 2-2 score at the end of the third period. The deciding goal in overtime came from the best player in the world, Connor McDavid, clinching the Four Nations Cup for Canada.

Connor McDavid (pictured at center) scores the overtime goal to win the Four Nations for Canada.

Although this may not be the desired outcome of fans in TD Garden that night, the impact of the game and the tournament cannot be denied. The Four Nations Tournament was able to do something that the NHL hadn’t been able to do in some time: bring an extreme popularity to the game and give the league a newfound energy.