Matthew Tkachuk continues to chase Team USA Hockey dominance as 2026 IIHF World Championship begins

Wrong.

The tournament begins May 15 in Zurich and Fribourg, and the Americans are trying to win back-to-back gold medals at the event for the first time ever.

Tkachuk made his mindset pretty clear.

"Well, I sure as hell hope so," Tkachuk said when asked by McAfee if the U.S. is going to win the tournament. "[We're] not going over there for a vacation."

That's exactly the kind of attitude USA Hockey needs to keep building around.

The Americans won the 2025 IIHF World Championship for the first time since 1933, beating Switzerland 1-0 in overtime on Tage Thompson's goal. Jeremy Swayman made 25 saves in the win, and the Americans finally ended a 92-year drought at the event.

So, yes, the mood around American hockey is different right now.

And it should be because it's not just the highest level, either.

The IIHF World Junior Championship (U20) occurs each year and is one of the premier annual international hockey tournaments. It matters because from 2005 through 2023, Canada won 10 gold medals, and all other countries combined to win nine (USA won four). 

For years, Canada dominated hockey on the world's stage. Everyone else was just trying to catch up. That's not really the deal anymore.

The U.S. won the World Championship.

The U.S. men won Olympic gold. The U.S. women won Olympic gold. The U.S. juniors have won two U20 World Championships since Canada last won one.

And now Tkachuk is heading to Switzerland talking like a player who expects to keep the run going.

That's what a winning culture looks and sounds like.

Tkachuk told McAfee this will be his first time playing in the annual world championship. In past years, he said, the timing didn't work because he was either still in the NHL playoffs, dealing with a contract situation or managing the normal wear and tear that comes at the end of a long season.

But after representing the United States in February, he wanted to put the jersey back on.

That's how Canada dominated this sport for decades.

Talent was obviously a major part of the recipe. But it wasn't just about that. If people have learned anything, it's that America produces the best athletes in the world. What Canada has was buy-in. The best players cared. They took pride in being the best in the world at hockey. America, historically, cared more about dominating other sports.

Now, the United States suddenly has hockey energy.

And Tkachuk is a perfect face for it.

McAfee, naturally, leaned all the way into the American hockey swagger, noting the U.S. won the world title last year and joking that hockey feels like it belongs to America now.

Tkachuk didn't correct the assertion.

"We won the big one," he said of Olympic gold. "That's all that matters."

That gold medal win over Canada changed the conversation. The world championship last year was historic, but how many Americans even realize the U.S. won that tournament? But there are few American citizens who aren't aware that the United States captured Olympic gold in a tournament that included nearly all of the world's best hockey players. That's the one that told the hockey world the Americans weren't just lurking in the background.

They had arrived.

But, as has been said many times, staying at the top is often harder than getting to the top. Maintaining that attitude and grit when you go from being the chaser to being the chased can be one of the toughest things to do in sports.

The World Championship isn't the Olympics. It doesn't generally feature every country's best roster because the NHL playoffs are still going, players are banged up, and plenty of stars pass for understandable reasons. But winning it again would still matter.

A lot.

Team USA has never won back-to-back gold medals at the IIHF World Championship. The Americans open this year's tournament against Switzerland on May 15 in a rematch of last year's gold-medal game.

The U.S. ended a 92-year world-title drought by beating Switzerland last year. Now the Americans get Switzerland again, in Switzerland, with a chance to begin another gold-medal run.

Team USA has spent the last few years turning international hockey into another display of American excellence.

Tkachuk sounds ready to keep it going.