It’s been decades since a meaningful team-sport rivalry played out at the Winter Olympics, the kind of showdown that pits two nations in a symbolic clash of worldviews. For the United States, the 1980 Miracle on Ice, its upset of the Soviet Union in the men’s hockey semifinal at the height of the Cold War, perhaps best exemplifies this phenomenon. For Canada, that moment is happening on Thursday at the Milan-Cortina Olympics, when its women’s hockey team goes up against the American team.
Make no mistake: If the men’s hockey teams for Canada and the United States meet in the gold medal game on Sunday, that matchup will be brutal, and fraught. The teams are longstanding antagonists and the political climate, created by President Trump’s aggression toward our northern neighbor, has only inflamed these passions. When the players met at the N.H.L.’s Four Nations Face-Off in 2025, a fight broke out two seconds into the game. Then another fight, and then a third — three fistfights in the first nine seconds, highly unusual even by hockey’s pugilistic standards.
But the Olympic rivalry between the U.S. and Canadian men’s teams is tempered by the fact that several other countries — Sweden, Finland, the Czech Republic — are highly competitive, too. And as authentic as the players’ national allegiances may be, the men’s teams are populated by longtime professionals who otherwise play against one another all the time, and even lace up as teammates on N.H.L. squads.
This has been true since 1998, when pro hockey players were first able to compete in the Olympics. Part of what made the Miracle on Ice in 1980 so miraculous is that the U.S. team was made up of amateurs and college players who went up against Soviet-trained Iron Curtain stars. The Olympic competition now plays out much like an all-star exhibition, recalling more the World Baseball Classic — another event that pits pros against one another, sorted by country — than the original Miracle on Ice.
This is not true for the women.
For starters, the Canadian and American women’s hockey teams are utterly dominant in the sport. Since women’s hockey was introduced as an Olympic event in Nagano in 1998, Canada has five gold medals and the U.S. has two. No other country has ever won the gold. The teams squared off in six of the seven Olympic finals (Sweden squeaked past the United States for silver in 2006).
These two teams have long hated each other. Players have refused to board an elevator together; tales have been told (and refuted) of flags having been desecrated, then avenged. While many of the superstars of women’s hockey also play professionally — players like Canada’s Marie-Philip Poulin and Hilary Knight of the United States — women’s pro hockey is nowhere near as high-profile as the N.H.L., and these players have made their reputations largely in the harsh spotlight of international competition, pitted against one another. I’d venture that every reader knows the name Wayne Gretzky but few outside Canada might recognize Hayley Wickenheiser, a legend known as the Wayne Gretzky of women’s hockey, the highest compliment one Canadian can bestow on another.
Stoking this already overheated rivalry, of course, is the serious enmity between the two countries, which hadn’t been an issue since roughly 1812. When President Trump mused aloud about annexing Canada, many Americans shrugged it off as crass trolling, but Canadians took it dead seriously. To complicate matters, the hockey deity Gretzky now pals around with MAGA luminaries, which for Canadians is a bit like finding out that Babe Ruth was spying for Germany.
The resulting upswell in Canadian pride has found expression in the hockey-themed (what else?) slogan “Elbows Up,” which is slang for a pugnacious playing style, and which was featured in an ad made by the comedian Mike Myers and Prime Minister Mark Carney. It was after this that Mr. Carney articulated a more serious global vision — remember when national politicians were articulate? And serious? — for imperiled middle powers like Canada at the Davos conference.
This is the backdrop for a women’s gold medal game that’s taken on the symbolic resonance of a classic Cold War clash. The U.S. team arrives as a daunting juggernaut, having already beaten Canada in the qualifying rounds and outscored its Olympic opponents 31-1. The U.S. is the heavy favorite — perhaps as heavy as the Soviet men’s team was in 1980 when it laced up against a bunch of American college kids. Do you believe in miracles, eh?
Or maybe the United States will win the gold. Americans will cheer, momentarily, and move on to the next event. Canadians, however, will be distraught. And, if history is any precedent, Canadians will blink away their disbelief and disappointment, roll up their sleeves, and get their elbows up. They’ll start planning for ways to achieve a better outcome four years from now.
In that respect, they’ll have much in common with many American voters on this side of the border.
Adam Sternbergh is a culture editor for Opinion.
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