Team USA’s very Jewish ‘4 Nations Face-Off’ team deserved a Canadian counter
Canada snubbed its top Jewish scorer, Zach Hyman. Will they regret it?
Adam Fox (L) and Jack Hughes have starred for Team USA in the NHL 4 Nations Face-Off. Photo by Getty Images
By Louis Keene February 19, 2025
It’s been a rough stretch for Jewish sports snubs. In the NBA, the Sacramento Kings’ Domantas Sabonis missed the cut for the All-Star team despite pacing the league in rebounding — a diss made even worse by LeBron James’ 11th-hour withdrawal from Sunday’s exhibition.
And on the ice, some hockey fans will be wishing the most hyped-up game in years, which will already star at least two Jewish players, featured two more.
The 4 Nations Face-Off, a new tournament between the U.S., Canada, Finland and Sweden, has been a breakthrough, with National Hockey League players featuring in an international format for the first time since 2016. Despite the tournament occurring during what would otherwise be a break in the NHL season, the league’s elite players bought into the tournament, competing with the verve and ferocity — yes, there has been fighting — of Olympic competition.
Readers of the Forward will know that the NHL is experiencing a Jewish golden age right now, and when Team USA meets Team Canada in Boston for Thursday’s final (8:00 p.m. ET on ESPN), two members of this bumper crop of Jewish stars, the New Jersey Devils’ Jack Hughes and the New York Rangers’ Adam Fox, will play for the U.S. A third, Quinn Hughes (Jack’s older brother), hasn’t played due to injury but may rejoin for the final, an addition significant enough to prompt questions of fairness.
Canadian fans could have had their own Jewish foothold in the final in Zach Hyman. Hyman, a grandson of Holocaust survivors who wears the number 18 for the Edmonton Oilers, seemed to have a good case for the roster — he netted 54 times last season, which made him the first member of the tribe to hit the half-century mark. But Hyman was left off amid a slow start to the season — he has since rediscovered his scoring touch — and his countrymen have since been wondering online whether that decision may cost them the tournament.
Those critics say Hyman’s 2024-25 stats — a solid 19 goals and 13 assists in 50 games — belie his chemistry with Connor McDavid, his superstar Oiler teammate who has underwhelmed in the tournament. One NHL analyst called Hyman’s snub an “egregious, egregious omission.”
If Hyman was disappointed to miss out, he has found other fun things to do. As Team Canada knocked off Finland to clinch a spot in the final without him, Hyman visited the Ontario Hockey League franchise he recently acquired with his family.
In any event, Fox and the Hughes brothers will give American Jews plenty to cheer for.
Fox, a former Norris Trophy winner as the league’s top defenseman, had a hockey-themed bar mitzvah at Jericho Jewish Center, the Conservative synagogue his family attended in Long Island.
Playing for Team USA is Jewish family heritage for the Hughes brothers — whose younger brother, Luke, also plays for the Devils. Their mother, Ellen Weinberg-Hughes, played for the United States women’s national ice hockey team in the early 1990s.
Correction: A previous version of the article stated that Leon Draisatl featured for Team Canada. Draisatl is German.
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