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Rivalry is just a word or an idea until it becomes part of your DNA.
A rivalry doesn’t happen overnight or even over the course of a year or two. It must age like a fine wine or be built like brick by brick like a great house.
A rivalry manifests itself in a moment like Mike Modano dislocating his jaw screaming in jubilation after a young group of Americans knocked off a powerful Canadian squad at the the World Cup of Hockey in Montreal in 1996.
A rivalry is given new life in Sidney Crosby’s golden goal against the United States in overtime at Vancouver 2010, denying the Americans what would have been their first Olympic gold since 1980 and the Miracle on Ice.
A rivalry is enrichened in the Swedes’ dramatic win in the gold medal game in the 2006 Winter Olympics over Finland.
Saturday, what might as well be called Rivalry Day at the 4 Nations Face-Off, will feature games pitting historic rivals against each other as the four competing nations each play their second game of the tournament.
Finland and Sweden will square off at 1 p.m. ET, which just so happens to be prime time in Europe, and then the main attraction for North American hockey fans in Canada and the United States will clash Saturday evening.
The outcomes of the games will have much to say about who ends up in the championship game of the 4 Nations Face-Off Thursday, but the games will also add more chapters to literally decades of hockey lore for the fierce rivals.
The Canada/U.S. dynamic is easy to get your head around.
The majority of players in the NHL are from one of the two North American countries.
They are neighbours with long, vital hockey histories at all levels for both men and women.
Brady Tkachuk has never played in an NHL playoff game.
Saturday’s clash with Canada stands as the most important game in which he has ever participated, the American winger said.
“USA vs. Canada is bigger than just the guys on the ice,” Tkachuk. “There’s so many people past, present, down the road. So excited for it. We’ve been talking about that game especially. Really excited to experience it.”
Canada has won the last two Olympics in which NHL players have participated and were victorious at the 2004 and 2016 World Cup of Hockey tournaments.
Does that provide additional pressure on the U.S. to slay the Canadian monster?
“I’m not sure what that narrative is,” head coach Mike Sullivan said. “Obviously, this rivalry is well chronicled. It goes on and on. And I think it’s an incredible privilege to participate in it. Our guys are excited to earn their way and that’s one of the conversations we’ve had with them from Day One since we’ve assembled here in Montreal is that one of the greatest things about our sport is that nothing is inevitable, you’ve got to earn it every shift, you’ve got to earn it every game, you’ve got to earn it every year.”
Maybe villain and hero oversimplify how the Finns and Swedes and Canadian and American players, along with their legions of fans, feel about each other. But maybe not.
“Growing up as a young kid, when you go play American teams and stuff like that, you want to beat them so bad, and you grow, I don't want to say a hatred or anything, but you want to beat them so bad,” said Canadian defenceman Drew Doughty. “And I still have this feeling at 35 years old, how bad you want to beat the Americans.”
“I suggest everyone watches that one,” Doughty added.
Good advice.
For the Finns and the Swedes, it’s different because the countries’ shared history is different. But the feelings about the kind of competition that will unfold Saturday closely parallel what is emanating from the Canadian and American locker rooms.
Swedish head coach Sam Hallam invoked the name of Anders ‘Masken’ Carlsson, who helped Sweden to huge wins over Finland in the 1980s and 1990s as Sweden won two World Championships.
“It’s a long story but if you say ‘Masken’ Carlsson to a Finn, you get them going,” Hallam explained.
For Finns and Swedes who rise up through the hockey ranks, by the time they get to the senior level of the sport, they will have played against Finnish teams in international competition 20 or 25 times.
“I mean, we all have grown up with watching those games,” Hallam said. “There’s a kind of brotherly love and hate where hate is a strong word so take it the right way. But you want to beat your brother. That’s the way it is. We have tons of respect for the way they play the game, the way the character they have and that goes for hockey, and that goes for life too. I mean look at where they are on the map. And they never back down.”
Often the big brother, little brother comparison is made when discussing these two nations although Swedish forward Lucas Raymond asked, perhaps in jest, which country was supposed to be the little brother.
For the record, Finland is often seen as the little brother although Finnish defenceman Esa Lindell feels they have more than held their own against the Swedes.
"I don't feel like they've bullied us or anything like that. I feel like lately I think we've played very well against them,” Lindell said.
Regardless of the roles Lindell acknowledges there’s always a certain tension when the two nations meet on the ice.
"I don't know if it's the right term, but it's more personal, I feel,” Lindell said.
