When the NHL’s 4 Nations Face-Off began, it was hard to get a good read on what the expectations were. Healthy skepticism might have been overwhelming opinion.
On one hand, it is the first best-on-best tournament involving NHL players in nearly a decade, and it would help set the stage for the league’s return to the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Fans — and players — have been begging for this sort of tournament for years.
But how invested would the players be in a made-up tournament that seemed forced and did not have an Olympic medal at stake?
More importantly, how much would the fans care, and would they watch it?
It did not take long to realize that everybody — fans and players — cared. Deeply. Passionately. So much so that the tournament turned out to be a massive home run — and perhaps even bigger than the NHL could have possibly hoped.
Canada ended up winning it thanks to its 3-2 overtime win against the United States on Thursday night.
Edmonton Oilers forward Connor McDavid scored the winning goal.
Even though it was only four teams (United States, Canada, Sweden and Finland), it was hockey at its absolute best. The skill was undeniable. The speed and pace of the games was as good as you will ever see. It was physical, there was passion and the political backdrop only added to the intensity both on and off the ice. The results were massive ratings, hockey being the envy of other sports for the first time in … probably ever … and more eyeballs on the league than it has had in years.
The optimistic perspective here would be that this could be a massive turning point for the league and that perhaps new fans have been created.
But we have seen this sort of thing before. This is, after all, not the first time NHL players have played in best-on-best tournaments like this.
The momentum is almost never sustained.
It would not be a surprise if it was not sustained this time, either.
For one, patriotism and the flag are a big motivating factor for fans, and especially non-fans. It is not hard to get a casual sports fan to tune in for the United States vs. Canada when international bragging rights are at stake. That appeals to a wide audience beyond your core fan base. It is easy to get them to stay tuned in when the quality of play and the passion is what we saw in this tournament. That was especially true with the first United States-Canada game in the tournament when it began with three fights in the first nine seconds.
But what is going to happen when those same casual fans tune in a week from now and see a mediocre St. Louis Blues team playing a bad Chicago Blackhawks team? Or even when the best teams in the league are not anywhere as deep as these rosters were and the passion is not the same? If you can even get them to tune in.
That is the problem the NHL is going to have.
It cannot duplicate this skill level, quality of play or passion over an 82-game season — or even a full playoff run.
The NHL has always had an issue marketing itself and its stars. It finally did something with this tournament that actually seemed like a success and showed what it can be.
It just has to do something it has never done before: sustain it.
