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For Canadians, watching a hockey showdown against the U.S. can feel like a tale as old as time.
Preparing to turn off the work laptops — or at least, turning on another screen, too. Or maybe watching the game in another time zone means staying up late and knowing you’ll pay for it at work the next day.
Cuing up the gold medal hockey matchup between Canada and the U.S.
Pretending to … cough … work.
Canada and the U.S. are the only countries to win Olympic gold medals since women’s hockey was first introduced in the Olympics in 1998. The men’s tournament is still being written, as Canada looks to take on Finland on Friday in hopes of making it to the gold medal game on Sunday, potentially meeting the U.S. there.
But historically, the margin of defeat among both countries has been small, and the games are virtually guaranteed to be nail-biters as bigger geopolitical tensions sharpen the already intense rivalries between Team Canada and Team USA.
Here is a look back at some of the biggest milestone moments in past hockey showdowns between the two nations.
While not an Olympic tournament, the 4 Nations Face-Off in 2025 provided National Hockey League (NHL) players the opportunity to play in an international tournament, since there was a 12-year gap in NHL players attending the Olympics.
It was clear that the desire to watch international hockey was high for NHL fans, as the final game between Canada and the U.S. was watched by 16.1 million viewers in North America, with 9.3 million viewers in the United States and 6.3 million in Canada.
This made the game the second-most-watched hockey game in the past decade.
The game itself also did not disappoint, with three fights breaking out within the first nine seconds of the first period, setting the stage for both an exciting game and a historic matchup between the rivals.
Canada took home the win thanks to an overtime goal by Connor McDavid, officially starting the countdown for the 2026 Olympic Games.
The 4 Nations Face-Off came at a time of rising political tensions between Canada and the U.S., with U.S. President Donald Trump threatening to annex Canada.
“What I’d like to see — Canada become our 51st state,” Trump said on Feb. 3, 2025.
“Some people say that would be a long shot. If people wanted to play the game right, it would be 100 per cent certain that they’d become a state.”
Ahead of the Canada/U.S. matchup, Trump posted on Truth Social that he would be “calling our GREAT American Hockey Team this morning to spur them on towards victory tonight against Canada, which with FAR LOWER TAXES AND MUCH STRONGER SECURITY, will someday, maybe soon, become our cherished, and very important, Fifty First State.”
Canadian fans booed The Star-Spangled Banner when it played before the opening faceoff, and the three fights came not long after.
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Once Canada secured the win, former prime minister Justin Trudeau posted on X, “You can’t take our country — and you can’t take our game.”
Team Canada snagged the gold medal with a 3-2 win against the U.S. at Wukesong Sports Centre on Feb. 17, 2022. It was the fifth time Canada took home gold in women’s hockey at an Olympic Games.
Captain Marie-Philip Poulin scored twice to lead Canada, with Sarah Nurse adding a goal and an assist while Ann-Renée Desbiens, stopping 38 of 40 shots, earned the win in net.
Poulin also became the first player to score in four Olympic finals, according to Hockey Canada.
Canada also recorded a new single-tournament record of 57 goals, continuing to flex its talent across the roster.
The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) reported that this game was watched by 2.7 million Canadians and 3.54 million Americans, making it the most-watched Olympic event that year.
Despite the millions of viewers, only 834 spectators were able to attend the game, since it was the first Olympics following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The spotlight from the game helped mark a new era of women’s hockey. The Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) was founded in August 2023, just 18 months after the gold medal game.
Thursday’s gold medal game will be the first Olympics finals with the PWHL in action, not only providing players with teams to play on but also somewhere for fans to continue to consistently watch women’s hockey.
The U.S. women’s team snagged a victory against the Canadians with a 3-2 win, ending a streak of four straight Canadian gold medals in past games.
The championship was decided in a shootout for the first time in Olympic history.
Despite Canada owning a 2-1 lead heading into the third period, American forward Monique Lamoureux-Morando scored at the 13:39 minute mark of the third period to equalize the score.
American forward Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson eventually scored the game-winning goal against Canadian goalie Shannon Szabados.
Despite the 11 p.m. eastern start time, the game garnered 2.9 million viewers, which demonstrated the rise in viewership of women’s hockey from PyeongChang 2018 to Milan-Cortina 2026.
Once again, the Canadian women’s team came out victorious against the U.S. with another 3-2 win in overtime to take home the Olympic gold medal.
Marie-Philip Poulin and Brianne Jenner scored for the Canadians while Meghan Dunn and Alex Carpenter scored for the Americans.
Poulin netted the eventual game-winning goal at the 8:10 minute mark of the game.
This game earned Poulin the nickname ‘Captain Clutch’ for her reliable play that brought her team over the top.
In what serves as one of the greatest Canadian sporting moments, thanks to the ‘Golden Goal,’ the Canadian men’s team beat the U.S. on home ice in a 3-2 Olympic overtime win.
Despite a 2-0 Canada lead halfway through the second period, the U.S. tied the game thanks to goals from Ryan Kesler and Zach Parise.
It was then-22-year-old Sidney Crosby who scored in overtime at the 7:40 minute mark to bring the home crowd to its feet.
The game itself is the most-watched televised event in Canadian history, with 26.5 million people in Canada tuning in at some point and marking a victorious end to the 17-day tournament.
Three days before that gold medal win by the Canadian men’s team, the Canadian women’s team had already beaten the Americans in their Olympic final game to claim the gold medal by a 2-0 score.
Poulin scored the game’s only goals while Canadian Szabados posted a 29-save shutout.
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