Why Sweden vs. Finland is one of the best rivalries in hockey
For much of the 2025 4 Nations Face-Off, hype centered on the preliminary matchup and the final between Canada and the USA. Yet, there’s a clear reason why Finland and Sweden were also involved, outside of their abundance of NHL talent — they hate each other.
A year on from that tournament, the two Scandinavian hockey powerhouses clash in the preliminary stage of the Milan Cortina 2026 Olympic Games, with hopes of upsetting one of the North American teams on their way to a gold medal.
Daily Faceoff’s crew of Jeff Marek, Pete Blackburn, Uffe Bodin, and Carter Hutton broke down what the tournament could have in store for those two teams and the rivalry between them on the Milan Games preview show.
Jeff Marek: Can you give all of our viewers and listeners a sense of the international rivalry and, at times, the hockey hatred that exists between Sweden and Finland? Can you give us a sort of stat? We know Canada vs. USA, and we saw it at the 4 Nations Face-Off and what it can bubble up into, but give us a sense of the nature of the rivalry between Finland and Sweden.
Uffe Bodin: [Sweden] used to be the big brother. For a long time, Sweden were superior, but as you all see, Finland won the Olympics last time around without any NHL players and it just seemed that they have found this amazing way to come out on top in different tournaments, and obviously that hurts you as a Swede, so all the time, every time we played them, you can see, like the semifinals in the World Juniors last month, it’s always so close.
You can almost count on it being at least overtime. We saw it last year at the 4 Nations as well. Like on paper, Sweden always seems to have a better team, but just when Sweden plays Finland, it’s always close. It doesn’t matter. So obviously, these games, I think, are even more important for Finland. It’s a smaller country than Sweden, and I think they have maybe a little brother complex towards us. I think their hatred for Sweden is a bit bigger than the hatred we have for them.
With the tournament hitting its stride, you can catch the full preview and breakdown here…