Team USA player understands why Canadian fans boo the American anthem

USA and Finland both got their first taste of action at the 4 Nations Face-Off on Thursday evening, after Canada opened up the tournament with a 4-3 victory over Sweden on Wednesday night.

As you might imagine, there were some passionate Canadian hockey fans in attendance at Montreal’s Bell Centre cheering against the rival United States. American captain Auston Matthews was boo’ed from the moment he got on the ice, and throughout the entire contest.

The booing was also present during the American national anthem and could be heard throughout the signing of ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ before puck drop.

Forward Matthew Tkachuk called out fans for disrespecting the American anthem, but on Friday, when Cam Robinson met with another Team USA player, he got a different response.

The player asked Robinson to remain anonymous and started off by also disagreeing with the booing of his national anthem.

“Don’t love it. Makes you kind of cringe to see that.”

However, when Robinson asked what he thought of the continued threats of annexation and the President calling the Canadian PM “Governor”, the player started to understand why some patriotic Canadians might feel it’s their way of showing their frustrations towards President Trump’s remarks:

“Yeah, when you look it at from that side, I wouldn’t like another country threatening to swallow up mine (country). Especially one as big as the US. Would probably do more than boo an anthem…”

I’m actually very interested to see how things play out on Saturday evening when the Americans play Canada in Montreal. The atmosphere is going to be electric! Respectful? Probably not. Diplomatic? Definitely not.

But maybe that player will get why it happens.