In lieu of playing the traditional NHL All-Star Game this season, Fanatics (the NHL’s new uniform supplier) and the NHL have teamed up to create something they’re calling “4 Nations Face-Off,” which is an ice hockey tournament scheduled to take place on February 12–20, 2025, in Montreal and in Boston.
As the name implies, the tournament will feature teams representing Canada, Finland, Sweden, and the United States, who will play each other in a round-robin format, followed by a one-game final between the two top-placed teams. Only NHL players will make up the rosters of the four teams involved.
You can read more about the tournament in this press release, which lists information on tickets and game dates and locations.
Earlier today, the NHL and NHLPA released the first images of the team’s superstars in their uniforms for the tournament.
The above image shows Edmonton Oilers’ captain and Team Canada representative Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews of Team USA and the Toronto Maple Leafs, Viktor Hedman of Team Sweden and the Tampa Bay Lightning, and Finnish and Carolina Hurricanes star Sebastien Aho. We’re able to get partial glimpses of all four jerseys, although they are mostly obscured.
Canada and the USA have the most visible sweaters. Canada will wear red, the USA will wear blue, Sweden will be in yellow, with Finland in white. The jerseys are not the same as those worn in those respective countries’ international competition, although the colors are roughly the same.
Canada’s jersey is red, and features a white/red/white stripe across the chest. Centered on the stripes is a red maple leaf crest, with “CANADA” in radially arched, concave shape, in white. It appears the chest stripe pattern extends to the sleeves as well.
The USA will have blue sweaters, with “U S A” in white with red outlines for a wordmark/crest. It’s difficult to tell from the image, but it appears the USA sleeves will have a white/red stripe, which also looks to be present on the hem. There is a white star on the upper sleeve by the shoulder.
The Swedish and Finnish jerseys are a bit more difficult to make out. Sweden’s jersey will have a blue Tre Kronor (“three crown”) crest on the front of the jersey, and that looks something like this. Finland will have “SUOMI” (the Finnish spelling) with a logo beneath. The logo will resemble the Lion crest the team has used previously.
The NHLPA also released a short video showing some better looks at the jerseys.
🧵👀@Fanatics x #4Nations pic.twitter.com/slEenkyuvC
— NHLPA (@NHLPA) October 23, 2024
The video indeed shows Sweden will have the Tre Kronor crest:
And Finland’s jersey does have the Lion:
Obviously, these are just preliminary looks, but so far, so good. They’ve designed the jerseys so that each nation will only need one jersey for the entire tournament. We don’t know about the colors for helmets, gloves, socks or breezers yet, but I would imagine the shorts will be dark, and helmets will match the jersey color. The NHL hasn’t given any indication when any additional looks at the jerseys (or other uniform parts) will be unveiled.
While the NHL All-Star game has kind of devolved over the years into a fast-paced, high-scoring affair — for several games, four teams were created (each representing a division), with games played in a 3-on-3 format for three 10-minute periods. But the new 4 Nations Face-Off will play full-length games with full squads. It will be held in a round-robin format, with teams winning three points for a regulation win, two points for an overtime or shootout win, one point for an overtime or shootout loss, and zero points for a regulation loss. Each team will play three games, and the two teams with the most points will advance to a one-game final.
Your thoughts on the uniforms that have been shown so far?
Canada will likely have black helmets and black pants. Though I would do anything at this point to have them switch that up. Want Canada in red helmets and red pants.
With the USA wearing dark blue buckets, I’m thinking Canada might go with red helmets, to avoid any potential clash there. I don’t love “mono” hockey unis, but I think in this case I’d be OK with Canada in red/red/red.
Where did they show that USA has dark blue Helmets? Traditionally they’ve worn white.
I could see Sweden with dark blue and Finland with blue
They didn’t. I’m just speculating. It’s entirely possible USA will have white buckets, Sweden will have blue (and possibly Finland in blue as well, if somehow USA has white). But I’d expect the four teams will have four different color helmets, and matching the jersey would be the simplest way to accomplish that. I know traditionally Sweden wears royalish-blue helmets and shorts, and Finland goes darker blue for both.
Gotcha. Would make the most sense but based on history would guess USA with white, Finland dark blue and Sweden in blue (have seen Sweden in a darker blue before but can’t remember where)
This is a positive all around. Way better than an All-Star game. Uniforms look solid. And a 3-2-1-0 point system! Wonderful. NHL needs to move to that point system in the future.
100% Agreement, it’s incredibly illogical to award a different number of points overall depending on outcome. i.e. Games ending in ties in regulation as of now 3 points are awarded 2 for the OT win, 1 for the OT loss. Whereas regular season wins a total of 2 points are awarded. Is the NHL saying ties are more important, so they are allocated more overall points? Guess what, the NHL has created an incentive for games to end in ties (in regulation) and thus – more ties in regulation
I know it’s not happening, but 3-1-0 works for me.
I used to be a big fan of this until I saw where someone did the stats that way and it really didn’t change the standings much.
I’d rather see it where if they goto overtime the winner gets 2 and the looser get 0. If it goes to shoot out each get 1 point and the shootout winner will be for tie breaker purposes only
Oh thank goodness that Canada put their name on the jersey! I never would have figured out who the red and white team with a giant maple leaf was otherwise.
If Nike were making them, they could have ended up being lime green and said “GREAT WHITE NORTH” across them instead.
Reasonably confident the header image shows a Rogers ad patch on Canada’s shoulder. Hard to see but that’s definitely their logo and the letter R.
So I guess if you’re not of one these 4 nationalities you’re SOL? I much preferred the most recent All Star games they had. Very fast-paced and enjoyable to me.
I’m confused as well (or I’m not confused. In which case I’m just not into this idea). Players from any other countries are left out no matter how good they are, and players from these four countries are recognized as the league’s “all-stars” even if there are much better players from non-competing countries? I don’t know how you do this and account for any random country that a star player might come from, but it seems like maybe breaking it into US, Canada, Scandinavia, and (for lack of a better descriptor) “other Europe”. And I guess just hope some lone star doesn’t rise from Korea or Nigeria or Brazil otherwise the teams have to change.
So the Russian, Czech and other Eastern Europe countries are excluded? Weird
My guess is that they took a census and these are the Big Four by league population. It also suggests a dig at Russia for their war on Ukraine and avoiding the black eye of having Russia win the tournament.
I get the RUS/UKR issue, but add to the surprise the NHL didn’t add a 5th “Other Nations” team. Fans now won’t see 5 of the top 11 scorers from 23-24 (Kucherov, Panarin, Pastrnak (Czech), Draisaitl (German), Kaprizov), the #2 Norris vote getter (Josi – Swiss), and any number of goailies (Bobrovsky, Shesterkin, Georgiev (Bulgaria) )
With all the Russian stars, and many other European stars missing from this tournament, this is a shame.
A World All Stars team should have been added. As far as they RUS/UKR issue, as stated its not these players fault the war is going on or occurred.
I like the idea of an all-star tournament but I don’t think this is a logical approach. I’ve had an idea for an NBA all-star tournament that could possibly apply to the NHL. That is a round robin, vaguely NBA Jam style 2 on 2 tournament where each team (and their fan base) select 2 starters and an alternate (hockey would pick 2 plus a goalie and an alt, perhaps). Then they play down the field over the course of a weekend. Think about the uni ramifications. Every team could have a dedicated all-star uni if that’s what the supplier and league wanted, or they could do no special unis at all, or they could stick with league/conference/division specific unis for warm-ups and extracurricular events. Plus, every team gets representation, and all representation gets a fair shot at some of the spotlight, and fans can still root for their teams specifically.
It seems that when Canada is represented on an international stage they add black to their color mix. Just please represent your flag colors.
Plenty of nations use alternative colors in sports. Italy uses a sky blue along with their red white and green. Australia uses yellow and green. New Zealand is famously the All Blacks. We ourselves in the USA often have gold as a fourth color on our national teams’ palette. Don’t see any issue with it.
These things say Fanatics all over them, shouldn’t they say Ducks? Or at least, USA Ducks?
I like the embroidered details of the otherwise rather bland looking uniforms but I join others in saying that I do not get the 4 nations set up, excluding players from other nations. I would pick North America versus the rest of the world. Hard job to select, but it would be exciting to watch. Same goes for the NBA: North America versus the rest of the world from now on.
UGH!! Again with the ridiculous yoke collars!! :-(
I really appreciate that Finland doesn’t anglicize their name on their sweaters. It always reminds me of the old Soviet Union hockey sweaters with CCCP across the chest. I wish this practice was used more.