Trump and White House again refer to Canada as 51st state

Donald Trump didn't attend the 4 Nations Face-Off championship game, but he was still planning to keep an eye on it from afar.

And in a perhaps unsurprising fashion, he offered up a pretty direct call-out of his neighbours to the north prior to perhaps the most highly anticipated hockey game of the decade.

This morning, Trump phoned the American dressing room ahead of their matchup against Canada in the winner-take-all final.

BREAKING: Trump personally called Team USA and told them they must beat Canada 🇺🇸🏒🇨🇦

White House Press Sec: “We look forward to the U.S. beating our soon-to-be 51st state, Canada.”

🇨🇦🇺🇸 take Trade War to the ICE TONIGHT
WHO WILL WIN 🥇
pic.twitter.com/NXzd5ZUkT2

— Marc Nixon (@MarcNixon24) February 20, 2025

While the context of the phone call wasn't revealed, Trump shared a few of the details of the phone call to his Truth Social account while calling out Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and reiterating his previous claims to make the country America's 51st state.

"I’ll be calling our GREAT American Hockey Team this morning to spur them on towards victory tonight against Canada, which with FAR LOWER TAXES AND MUCH STRONGER SECURITY, will someday, maybe soon, become our cherished, and very important, Fifty First State,” Trump wrote. “I will be speaking before the Governors tonight in D.C., and will sadly, therefore, be unable to attend. But we will all be watching, and if Governor Trudeau would like to join us, he would be most welcome. Good luck to everybody, and have a GREAT game tonight. So exciting!”

American forward J.T. Miller commented on the president’s support, per The Athletic's Chris Johnston.

J.T. Miller on Trump's call: "It was so awesome to get his support. It's a pretty big deal for him to take time out of his schedule to talk to us for five minutes. It's just another one of those things where we're kind of pinching ourselves this tournament." https://t.co/EWdQQrRxmn

— Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) February 20, 2025

"It was so awesome to get his support. It's a pretty big deal for him to take time out of his schedule to talk to us for five minutes," Miller said. "It's another one of those things where we’re kind of pinching ourselves this tournament."

Earlier this week, Team USA general manager Bill Guerin had openly invited the president to the contest between the two teams during an appearance on Fox and Friends on Fox News.

The matchup is a rematch of Saturday’s round-robin game, where the Americans came away with a 3-1 win, with the Star Spangled Banner loudly booed prior to puck drop.

The game grew extra eyes outside the hockey community for its extremely physical nature, including three fights in nine seconds to open up the first period.

Tonight's championship is being played at TD Garden in Boston. It's the third and final game to be played on American soil after four round-robin games were played in Montreal.