From the boardroom to the ice: Inside the mad scramble that brought 4 Nations to life

BOSTON — Leave it to a couple of hockey’s biggest power brokers to spread the credit around and take none for themselves on the birth of the best idea the sport has seen in decades.

We shouldn’t have expected any differently when speaking with NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly and NHLPA director of international growth and strategy Rob Zepp about the 4 Nations Face-Off just hours before its grand finale at TD Garden. They’re hockey lifers, born and raised in a sport that frowns on self-aggrandizing behaviour.

Still, what we learned from them was that this tournament was conceived in boardroom meetings 18 months ago, with tight timelines and extraordinary obstacles to bring best-on-best competition back for the first time since the 2016 World Cup of Hockey.

“We were trying to plan and execute a World Cup of Hockey and we were focused on eight teams, and that would’ve been national teams as opposed to mixed teams, and then a whole host of things prevented us from doing that,” Daly said.

“Originally, it was going to be in February of 2024. We had resistance from the IIHF, we had resistance from the European leagues, some clubs, and we were trying to work through that resistance. The resistance was understandable because we were working on a very short timeline. … We went through the period where we were supposed to be in the Beijing Olympics, but Covid was still in the world and it forced us to miss that. And Russia invaded the Ukraine, so all of a sudden Russia became a non-possibility, so we had to shift on the fly to what can we do, and we really wanted to do something.

“We needed to plan a tournament that we had total control over, where all the players in it were NHL players. The only way we could’ve constructed that tournament was by going with these four teams, because otherwise we’re dealing with players that might not be playing in the NHL. So it became a logical conclusion.”

Another decision that fell into place, according to both Daly and Zepp, was to have it play out in Montreal and Boston.

Without enough time to accept formal bids from prospective markets, like they will for the 2028 World Cup of Hockey, these locations were thought to be perfect for the 4 Nations Face-Off.

“We knew we wanted to host in multiple cities, preferably to bring this action both north and south of the border,” Zepp said. “(Montreal and Boston) are two incredibly iconic hockey cities, they’re sports cities with passionate fanbases, they’re attractive destinations for people who would want to come in and witness these games in person. … Given their close proximity to one another, they checked a whole bunch of different boxes for us.”

What followed was a perfect storm: a display of unparalleled skill shook up through the snow-globe environments in which the game was meant to be played.

We don’t know if NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, Daly, David Proper (senior executive vice president of media and international strategy), Lynn White (SVP of international strategy), and NHLPA executive director Marty Walsh, assistant executive director Ron Hainsey, Zepp and Michelle Stajan-Strike (senior manager of international strategy and operations) — the people who conceived of this event —see it as the greatest marketing of the game in its history, but every participant with whom we’ve spoken, in one capacity or another, has called it exactly that.

Former GMs Ken Holland and Jarmo Kekalainen, former NHL and international superstars like Mark Messier, current coaches Jon Cooper and Mike Sullivan, and players Brad Marchand and Noah Hanifin have all suggested that this event has surpassed their incredibly high expectations and put hockey on the global radar in an unprecedented way.

“It’s almost overwhelming, in a sense, to see not only the reaction from the hockey community, but we know the big benefit and the power of hosting these competitions is the ability to attract a wider audience and cast a wider net,” added the 43-year-old Zepp, who appeared in 10 NHL games with the Philadelphia Flyers to end a career of goaltending in Germany and Finland.

“To see hockey being talked about across all sorts of major channels, with athletes and pop culture, it’s something in my time that I haven’t seen, and to be in that position now is incredibly profound. … I know all of us who are really close to this sport, who have played it — no matter what the level — can speak to how amazing the game is and how much we love it, but to see that spilling over into broader community and fan groups is super exciting. It’s hard to put into words to be honest.”

Daly is 60 years old. He started watching hockey at in 1971 and became hooked on it a year later during the 1972 Summit Series between Canada and the former Soviet Union. He’s been with the NHL for 28 years and has overseen and witnessed so many moments of growth for the sport.

But this one has been different.

“I think a lot of times we feel in our sport that we don’t get the attention that our game deserves,” Daly said. “We strongly feel it’s the best game in all of sports and sometimes we lack the attention that that should generate, and what’s been great about this is it’s really caught the imagination of not only hockey fans around the world and in both countries but non-hockey fans. I think what we saw on Saturday night is hockey can translate beyond the pure fans or those who are just casually interested or who just love sport and love pure sport. Obviously want to maintain that.”

The NHL and NHLPA have virtually guaranteed it, with a return to the Winter Olympics in 2026 and the rebirth of the World Cup of Hockey securing best-on-best competition every two years.

The impact these games have had likely goes well beyond the numbers, even if the data offers some tangible measure of it.

The NHL says the six round-robin games averaged 4.6 million viewers in North America, which is a 226 per cent increase from the average audience of the 2016 World Cup games. Consider that Sweden and Finland’s round-robin game last Saturday had a bigger television audience in Finland than the one that tuned in to watch both countries square off for Olympic gold at the 2006 Turin Games.

“It was second-most watched sporting event in Finnish television history,” said Daly, “and we’re talking about a mid-season international tournament that does it.”

It’s a tournament being played for medals, cash prizes and a trophy no one has ever won before or will ever win again.

But that hasn’t stopped players from playing like their lives are on the line.

“Being Canadian, I live and die by playing hockey, watching hockey, representing my country, watching my country play hockey,” said forward Mark Stone.

His teammates — and the competition — has treated it that way, giving us something that’s gone beyond what we’ve been pining for over the last eight-and-a-half years.

“These best-on-best tournaments I think bring out the best of the best,” said Sullivan. “The commitment, the investment that all of these teams have displayed every night, in my mind, has been an unbelievable celebration of hockey. Just from a hockey purist or a hockey fan in general, it’s hard not to get excited about what we’re witnessing. I would envision tonight would be the pinnacle of that, with Team USA and Canada competing for the championship. Both teams are terrific teams, there’s no weaknesses on either side, and it means an awful lot to both sides.

“These are the very best players in the game. These are the savants that when they bring their creativity and their brilliance to what they do out there, that’s how the game evolves. That’s what we’re seeing, that’s what we’re witnessing first-hand. …It’s been competitive, it’s been emotional, it’s all of the things we hope for in sports, and that’s why we love it.”

Cooper said these games are getting the attention around the globe they “richly deserve.”

They were put on by two traditionally opposed factions that have come together for the betterment of the sport.

Perhaps no image better captured that than the one that saw Bettman wrapping his arm around Walsh as the latter talked about the NHL and NHLPA not having much to disagree about in negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement. Barring completely unforeseen circumstances, according to both parties, the CBA could potentially be signed and ratified well before the current one expires in September 2026.

Their teams, led by Daly, Hainsey, Zepp, Proper, White and Stajan-Strike, initialized and spearheaded the sport’s most important initiative in recent memory.

“I think the cooperation between the NHL and NHLPA is much better and easier and more comfortable than it was in 2016,” said Daly. “We’ve been in lockstep and perfectly aligned from Day 1 of agreeing to do this and through the execution. I’m not even sure I could come up with a single example of where we had a significant disagreement. It’s been a really good collaboration.”

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It paved the way for the players to come here and do what they do best, and the players have delivered.

They feel they’ve been a part of something that’s forever changed hockey.

Even ahead of the championship game, which has potential to be better than any game we’ve seen at this event and any that’s come before it, Hanifin said the sport has won most here.

“It’s almost bigger than the final itself now,” the U.S. defenceman started. “You have so many people just watching and supporting hockey, and it’s opened so many eyes to the game. I think this just the best thing that’s happened for the game in quite a long time. It’s a great opportunity for us as players to be a part of it.”

It’s the first page in a new, exhilarating chapter of international hockey, and it’s got everyone eager to get to the next one.

“You could never script it, and who knows how it would’ve played out if one or two of the games had gone in different directions,” said Daly. “But luckily for us they didn’t, and we find ourselves where (we) find ourselves and hopefully it’s going to be a great night of hockey.”

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