Why Brady, Matthew Tkachuk (probably) won't fight Canada for Team USA in Olympic gold medal game

When Team USA took on Canada at the 4 Nations Faceoff about a year ago, a major narrative centered around the fights that brothers Brady and Matthew Tkachuk helped initiate to set the tone.

When they met in the preliminary round, there were three fights in the first nine seconds.

At the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, the gold medal game is on Sunday between the U.S. and Team Canada.

The Tkachuk brothers are there, but they likely won't be fighting anyone.

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Why is there no fighting allowed in USA-Canada?

The problem is that fighting is penalized much more severely in Olympic play.

Olympics hockey follows IIHF rules, where fighting is punished harshly.

Anyone who fights in Olympic play is given a major penalty and an automatic game misconduct. That equals an ejection.

So anyone who decided to fight in the first nine seconds of a gold medal match would miss essentially the entire match.

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The rule certainly doesn't stop the physicality at all, and there will be moments that seem on the verge of boiling over. That's part of hat makes USA-Canada so intense.

But if there are any fists thrown, there will be ejections. And especially early on, neither team can afford to be losing players for the rest of the game just for a little tone setting.

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