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

If anyone thought Team USA was satisfied with Olympic gold and ready to coast through the rest of the international hockey calendar, Matthew Tkachuk has a message.

Wrong.

The Florida Panthers star joined "The Pat McAfee Show" on Thursday and discussed his plan to play for Team USA at the 2026 IIHF World Championship in Switzerland. USA Hockey's preliminary roster, announced May 7, includes Tkachuk for the first time, since the Panthers failed to reach the NHL playoffs this season.

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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.

Canada leads all countries with 28 IIHF World Championship victories (last in 2023), just ahead of Russia's 27 (also counting Soviet Union victories). The United States has just three titles in the tournament's history (88 events). The total includes 1960 when the Olympics counted as the World Championship and the U.S. captured gold.

The 2025 U.S. victory was just an appetizer for the main course, when the Americans beat Canada to win Olympic gold at the 2026 Milano Cortina Games. Jack Hughes scored the winner, Connor Hellebuyck stood on his head and the Americans won their first Olympic men's hockey gold medal since 1980.

The success of Team USA has greatly increased the excitement around hockey for Americans, with the NHL benefiting greatly from the renewed enthusiasm and putting up massive television viewing numbers since the Olympics.

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). 

However, the United States won in 2024 and 2025, while Sweden captured gold in 2026.

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.

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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.

"I think it's just such an honor to wear a USA jersey," Tkachuk said. "Going here a few months later, I still have that feeling that I had representing back in February in Milan. It's like, how could I not want to be a part of that again?"

Again, that's precisely what American hockey fans want to hear. While there are some athletes complaining about representing the United States on a global stage, the hockey players have embraced being proud of wearing the red, white and blue. Tkachuk embraces his patriotism so much that he's heading to play in a tournament after going through the grind of an entire NHL season.

This is how a national program goes from having a moment to building a consistent winner. It happens when the best players treat every tournament as an opportunity to prove dominance to the world. They long to don the USA sweater, no matter the venue.

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.

He's skilled, tough, and works hard. He embodies American spirit. Plus, he's actually proud to be an American.

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.