{"id":489897,"date":"2026-02-21T12:20:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T12:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/489897\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T12:20:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T12:20:07","slug":"canada-usa-meet-again-why-there-wont-be-repeat-of-4-nations-fights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/489897\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada, USA meet again: Why there won’t be repeat of 4 Nations fights"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canada and the USA are meeting in the men’s hockey gold medal game<\/a>, just as they had in the 4 Nations Face-Off final<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That 2025 tournament was famous for the three fights in the first nine seconds<\/a> of the team’s first meeting in the round robin.<\/p>\n

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But there almost certainly won’t be a repeat at the\u00a0Olympics<\/a>. Players can’t take the risk in such a high-stakes game.<\/p>\n

Even though all six combatants in that wild opening are in Milan, including\u00a0USA brothers Matthew and Brady Tkachuk<\/a>, the International Ice Hockey Federation prohibits fighting, and it could lead to an ejection and a suspension.<\/p>\n

There was a sort of fight<\/a> in this year’s Olympics – more like a wrestling match – and the players were ejected.<\/p>\n

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“Fighting is not part of international ice hockey’s DNA,” the IIHF states in\u00a0Rule 46 of its rulebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Players who willingly, participate in a ‘brawl\/fight’ so-called ‘willing combatants,’ shall be penalized accordingly by the referee(s) and may be ejected from the game,” the rulebook says. “Further supplementary discipline may be imposed.”<\/p>\n

International rules on hockey fights<\/p>\n

Rule 46, which addresses fighting, has 13 sections. Penalties are more severe than in the NHL, which sends players to the penalty box for five minutes.<\/p>\n

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“Any player who persists in continuing or attempting to continue a ‘fight or altercation’ after they been ordered by the referee to stop, or who resists a linesperson in the discharge of their duties shall, at the discretion of the referee, incur at least a major penalty, plus an automatic game misconduct penalty,” the rulebook says.<\/p>\n

Instigating a fight brings an automatic game misconduct, compared to a misconduct in the NHL, and being an aggressor and continuing a fight to inflict damage also brings an ejection. So does being third man in.<\/p>\n

Referees have latitude in making calls. A unwilling combatant who throws a punch or two in defense could avoid a game misconduct.<\/p>\n

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What was the fight at the 2026 Olympics?<\/p>\n

Canada’s Tom Wilson went after France’s Pierre Crinon<\/a> over his earlier hit on Nathan MacKinnon.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t much of a fight, more of a wrestling match with gloves dropped but no real punches thrown. IIHF rules, though, state that a fighting penalty can be called if “players wrestle in such a manner as to make it difficult for the linespersons to intervene and separate the combatants.”<\/p>\n

Both Wilson and Crinon were ejected. They received two minutes for roughing, five for fighting and a game misconduct.<\/p>\n

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The IIHF decided not to suspend them, though the French hockey team did suspend Crinon<\/a> because of his “provocative behavior when he came out of the ice.”<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Olympics fighting ban explained: Why USA, Canada won’t drop gloves<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canada and the USA are meeting in the men’s hockey gold medal game, just as they had in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[12717,49,48,196917,118982,23908,191393,196918,48001,44,193562,41625,196916],"class_list":["post-489897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-brady-tkachuk","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-combatants","tag-hockey-fights","tag-iihf","tag-international-ice-hockey-federation","tag-major-penalty","tag-nathan-mackinnon","tag-news","tag-pierre-crinon","tag-tom-wilson","tag-wrestling-match"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}