USA using hostile environment to fire them up at 4 Nations Face-Off

With the 4 Nations Face-Off being split between two countries, it was inevitable that the “visiting” North American squads would have to deal with more than their opponents on the ice.

However, Team USA is taking what has been an unfriendly crowd at the Bell Centre in Montreal to get them jacked up. Starting with the boo birds prior to their first game of the tournament to the apparent pro-Finland patrons in attendance, the Americans used the atmosphere as fuel to pull away with a 6-1 win on Thursday night.

It isn’t as if these players aren’t familiar with playing in hostile environments. Along with playing in loud barns across the NHL, a few on the current U.S. roster, including Jack Hughes, Charlie McAvoy and Brock Faber, have played in Canada during past IIHF World Junior Championships. With a looming matchup against Canada set for Saturday night, the Americans are going to have to deal with an even more raucous crowd.

On Friday’s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk discuss the tough task of the Americans playing in front of an unkind atmosphere.

Frank Seravalli: This environment…it was somewhat hostile already against Finland. You could tell Canadian fans wanted Finland to win…Let’s be honest, there’s an anti-American stance. Some of it’s geopolitical, some of it’s a rivalry, some of it’s, “Hey, we just don’t like Auston Matthews from the Toronto Maple Leafs being the Team USA captain.”

The Tkachuks did talk after the game about this. The boos during the national anthem fueling them. That fired them up a little bit more. They also mentioned, in a very short way, “We didn’t like it.” So, if you thought that was something on Thursday, wait until Saturday night at about 8:08 p.m. as they’re doing the national anthems.

You can watch the full segment and entire episode here…