Team USA hockey picked up a huge 3-1 victory over Canada on Saturday to secure a spot in the inaugural 4 Nations Face-Off, and the tone was set in the first nine seconds when Matthew Tkachuk, Brady Tkachuk and JT Miller all dropped the gloves. The three were in a group text, and Brady Tkachuk came up with the idea of sending them a message at the start of the game.

“Yeah, there was a little discussion during the day,” Brady Tkachuk hesitantly said, via Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic.

Older brother, Matthew Tkachuk said that Brady could tell the story.

“Yeah, there was a group chat going on today,” Brady said. “Still slept like a baby though. Just kind of reaffirmed that we would do that.”

The first to fight was older brother Matthew, who dropped the gloves with Brandon Hagel after the opening faceoff. Then, Brady dropped the gloves just after with Sam Bennett. The next shift, Miller fought with Colton Parayko. Brady said it was an energy boost at the start of the game.

“Matthew's fight to start it off was such an energy boost,” Brady said. “I think I was more excited, more nervous than my own. And then Millsy to cap it off to go against a big guy like that, I think he did a great job.”

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It is certainly a unique environment, and the long-awaited game between USA and Canada lived up to the hype right away, as the atmosphere at the Bell Centre was like a playoff game, maybe even better. Miller spoke on his role in the theatrics.

“That was pretty fun, that was the coolest experience I've probably had on the ice or one of them,” Miller said. “To hear the building like that, it's something you'll never forget. There's a lot of bad blood but at the same time tons of respect for the other team. Just a fun environment to be in. You don't get this opportunity very often.”

Canada scored the first goal, as Connor McDavid sent the crowd into a frenzy, but Jake Guentzel responded in the first period to tie it. Dylan Larkin scored the winning goal in the second period, with Guentzel adding his second goal in the form of an empty-netter to make the score 3-1.

Team USA will play Sweden on Monday in Boston, but the spot in the championship game is already secured. Canada needs to beat Finland to make a rematch with USA happen on Thursday.