During Tuesday’s State of the Union, Donald Trump welcomed members of the US men’s national hockey team to the House gallery to chants of “U-S-A, U-S-A!”. Trump revealed that Team USA’s goaltender, Connor Hellebuyck, will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. “What special champions you are,” Trump told the players, who had beaten Canada on Sunday in the gold medal game of the Winter Olympics.
In Trump’s America, proximity is never neutral.
While the hockey players were greeted with warm applause from both Republicans and Democrats, Trump also had used the team as props in his speech. “Our country is winning again,” Trump said just before he introduced them. “To prove that point, here with us tonight is a group of winners who just made the entire nation proud.”
Last winter, Trump suddenly took a great interest in hockey. It was February, and the US were facing Canada in the NHL’s mid-season 4 Nations Face-Off tournament. In the weeks prior, Trump had mused about annexing Canada to make it America’s 51st state. Canada won that round, but Trump didn’t forget about hockey. Last month, after Canada announced a tariff deal with China, Trump warned that China would “take over Canada” and that its first move would be to “end ice hockey”. A few weeks later during a social media rant about the Gordie Howe International Bridge connecting Ontario and Michigan, Trump did it again, speculating that China would “eat Canada alive” and that it would “eliminate ALL Ice Hockey being played in Canada and permanently eliminate The Stanley Cup”.
This wasn’t just about trade. It was about hierarchy. About who defers to whom. The comments also followed the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, upstaging Trump at Davos, and Trump subsequently withdrawing his invitation for Carney to join the Board of Peace. Ultimately, Trump’s focus on hockey is wrapped up in Canada’s refusal to come to heel. Trump’s vision of the world, and of North America more specifically, is that it belongs to him – or that, at the very least, it should do as he says. Looked at this way, hockey, Canada’s game, is just another piece of leverage, something to threaten when things aren’t going Trump’s way. Nice little game you got there, shame if something were to happen to it.