President Donald Trump will not be at the 4 Nations Face-Off championship between Team USA and Canada on Thursday, but he gave the Americans a phone call ahead of time.
After posting on Truth Social, where he again proclaimed Canada “will someday, maybe soon, become our… Fifty First State,” Trump dialed the team while they were in the locker room of TD Garden in Boston the morning of the game.
“It was so awesome to get his support,” J.T. Miller, one of three Americans to drop the gloves in the first USA-Canada bout, said on Thursday, via The Athletic. “It’s a pretty big deal for him to take time out of his schedule to talk to us for five minutes. It’s just another one of those things where we’re kind of pinching ourselves this tournament.”
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Team USA general manager Bill Guerin said Trump dropped a 51st state reference to the team.
“But I would just try to focus on the message that he was giving us,” Guerin said. “I’ve said it before: We’re here to play hockey. This is not a political forum. This is a hockey tournament. And he’s just trying to be supportive in the best way that he could, and we appreciate it.”
Guerin added, “He was just very supportive and just said, ‘Hey, you guys are going to do great. It’s going to be a great game. Just relax and play.'”
“It’s the president of the United States,” defenseman Brock Faber added. “When you’re a kid, you don’t ever think that’s going to be a possibility. It was really cool.”
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“It’s pretty, pretty wild, and it’s an honor for all of us in here to represent your country and to get a call from the president,” forward Brock Nelson said. “Also, just goes to show, I think, it’s a big game not only for hockey, but for beyond the game. It’s something that we’ll remember.”
Matt Boldy added, “Obviously, he’s a very influential person in the world. It’s special. I think it speaks to how good the tournament’s been for hockey and the exposure that’s been given to a new group of fans.”
The rivalry stretches over plenty of time, but with political tensions between the two countries, it’s now hotter than ever before. Canada owns a 13-4-1 record over Team USA in best-on-best format, including two Olympic gold-medal victories (2002 and 2010) and a 2014 Olympic semifinal victory.
The puck drops in Boston at 8 p.m. ET.
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