Even after winning the 4 Nations Face-Off, Canada couldn’t resist a few extra barbs at their neighbours to the south.
Coming away with an iconic 3-2 overtime win Thursday night over the Americans, the Canadian team was quite fired up in their postgame celebrations.
And yes, a particular set of mouthy brothers took most of the heat from Canadian players after the USA’s loss.
“The Tkachuk brothers, they play their game, they do what they do. Sometimes when you shoot your mouth off in the media, it bites you,” Canadian forward Brad Marchand said postgame. “You can do that during the season, but when you’re playing best-on-best, it’s different.”
Given the fact that Marchand plays in the Atlantic Division against Matthew Tkachuk’s Florida Panthers and Brady Tkachuk’s Ottawa Senators, he’s got a little more history against the brothers than most players.
“They got a little bit ahead of themselves,” Marchand added. “But they’re great players. There’s not many guys in the league that do what they do, and they’re extremely effective. But when you start giving teams ammo, it can work against you.”
Canadian forward Brandon Hagel, meanwhile, opted for a chirp on social media.
Earlier in the week, Hagel mentioned there was no Team Canada group chat after Brady Tkachuk told the media the Americans had planned the three fights in nine seconds to start Saturday’s round-robin game over text messages.
In response, Matthew Tkachuk suggested that the Canadian players might not like each other very much if they don’t have a group chat.
After the victory, Hagel shared a screenshot on his Instagram story of a newly created group chat simply titled “CHAMPIONS,” with players like Marchand, Sidney Crosby, Connor McDavid, and Mitch Marner all clearly viewable as members.
Brandon Hagel starts a group chat 😂 pic.twitter.com/FFpUGWT0Iy
— luke fox (@lukefoxjukebox) February 21, 2025
With the 2026 Winter Olympics now less than a year away, we can only wonder how the war of words between the two rivals might heat up over the next 12 months.