BOSTON — When they played “O Canada” for the second time, there were no American fans left in the arena to boo.
Instead, the Canadian team stood at the blue line, arm in arm, player and coach, wearing their championship hats while the maple leaf flag was lowered behind the 4 Nations Face-Off trophy and the 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 tune-up for the 2026 Olympics into a geopolitical brawl over anthems and annexation as much as international hockey supremacy.
Or, to put it another way: It was the 51st U.S. state 3, Canada’s 11th province 2.
