{"id":477068,"date":"2026-02-28T13:15:33","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T13:15:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/477068\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T13:15:33","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T13:15:33","slug":"attempts-to-shame-team-usa-are-why-trump-was-voted-back-in-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/477068\/","title":{"rendered":"Attempts to shame Team USA are why Trump was voted back in office\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Wednesday night, golden boy and New Jersey Devil Jack Hughes returned to his home ice in Newark<\/a>. The half edentulous star embraced his USA teammate turned opponent, Buffalo\u2019s Tage Thompson, expressed his national pride and thanked the crowd.<\/p>\n

He recieved a thunderous ovation. <\/p>\n

And to think, a day earlier, The Athletic columnist Jerry Brewer wrote of Team USA\u2019s post-win celebration \u2014 including that now-famous call from President Trump \u2014 \u201cThey\u2019ve already lost some of the room.\u201d<\/p>\n

New gold medalists Jack Hughes of the New Jersey Devils (right) and Tage Thompson of the Buffalo Sabres embraced during a pregame Olympic Ceremony at Wednesday\u2019s Devils v Sabres match-up. Hughes drew enormous applause after addressing the crowd. NHLI via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The \u201croom\u201d of which he writes isn\u2019t the real world, where Hughes and Thompson were showered with love.<\/p>\n

Rather, it\u2019s a lefty echo chamber, made up of journalists and a bizarre ecosystem of online hockey fans, that wants to tear the sport down to its studs and remake it in their progressive likeness, complete with pronouns in the bio.<\/p>\n

\t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\tKirsten Fleming<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a chorus that has treated our conquering heroes like thought criminals \u2014\u00a0browbeating these elite athletes because they took a celebratory call from the democratically elected president of their country.<\/p>\n

Also on the list of grievances: The tipsy crew laughed through Trump\u2019s joke that he\u2019d get impeached if he didn\u2019t also invite the gold-medal women\u2019s team to the State of the Union; but many also shouted affirmations and support for the ladies.<\/p>\n

Just as bad, apparently, the fellas had the gall to actually attend the SOTU address<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Team USA men\u2019s hockey players got a rousing ovation at Tuesday\u2019s State of the Union address. But many in the media, and on social media, blasted their choice to attend. AP<\/p>\n

A USA Today column said the players \u201cutterly failed to meet the cultural moment,\u201d while ESPN host Pete Rosenberg called them \u201csad little pawns\u201d for attending. Feminist Jessica Valenti wrote<\/a> in her Abortion, Every Day newsletter that any of the players with daughters blew their credibility with their own offspring \u2014 I guess because they didn\u2019t correct Trump mid-call and read him a passage from a Gloria Steinem book.<\/p>\n

Across the Northern border, Toronto Star columnist Damien Cox opined that Auston Matthews<\/a>, a Californian who plays for the Toronto Maple Leafs, \u201ccould have just skipped the White House nonsense \u2026 All he had to say was he understood the feelings of Canadians in these troubled times.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes, won\u2019t anyone think of the losers?<\/p>\n

Even now, as the boys return to their respective NHL teams, reporters are putting them through struggle sessions about the supposed controversies. (Three have now expressed mild public regrets<\/a> over their reactions to the president\u2019s joke.)<\/p>\n

The Athletic columnist Jerry Brewer wrote that the US men\u2019s hockey team lost the room after chatting with Donald Trump and agreeing to attend the State of the Union.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the purpose of this mass shaming exercise? These whingers and whiners want the guys to publicly disavow Trump and promise to wear hair shirts under their pads and sweaters for the remainder of the season.<\/p>\n

Nothing short of a symbolic self-immolation at center ice will do. Then, maybe, the beatings will stop.<\/p>\n

Of course, these dudes have nothing to apologize for. Unless you consider being awesome an offense.<\/p>\n

But this isn\u2019t just about USA hockey. <\/p>\n

The pearl-clutching pile-on is a broader indication that many in the media learned absolutely nothing from cancel culture\u2019s halcyon days, in the early 2020s. Back when online pitchforks were yielded fiercely to squash critical thinking and differences of opinion \u2014 and repercussions were very much felt in real life.<\/p>\n

A column from USA Today complained that the gold medal winners \u201cutterly failed to meet the cultural moment.\u201d <\/p>\n

When the anointed social executioners demanded that any dissidents abandon their not-lefty-enough thoughts and join the side of kindness and compassion. When even Twitter (pre Elon) would shut down accounts for \u201cmisgendering.\u201d<\/p>\n

In this house, we believe you say the thing we want you to say and no one gets hurt.<\/p>\n

But we\u2019ve all learned that you don\u2019t win hearts and minds at the end of a wagging finger.<\/p>\n

If anything, those tense attitudes led people to speak softer for a bit. They kept their thoughts and political leanings quiet, but privately seethed over having to self-censor.<\/p>\n

The mass demand for purity \u2014\u00a0as defined by a small amount of people \u2014\u00a0only pushed more normies away. And many common sense liberals to move right.<\/p>\n

Gold medalists Jackson LaCombe (from left), Brady Tkachuk, Zach Werenski and Matthew Tkachuk of Team United States held up the sweater of the late Johnny Gaudreau after the team\u2019s 2-1 overtime victory over Canada in the 2026 Winter Olympics. Getty Images<\/p>\n

This demand for conformity was a radicalizing moment for many Americans. The backlash to the scolds helped Trump win his second term.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019ll bet Team USA, whatever their politics, won\u2019t suddenly wake up reprogrammed to the suit the political tastes of the critics.<\/p>\n

None of them endorsed anything or anyone. They simply expressed pride in their country, the one they just represented at the Olympics and accepted an invitation from the leader of the free world<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, much of the left is still waging a campaign to marginalize Trump and anyone who associates with him at any turn \u2014\u00a0even if it means smearing a group of men who played their hearts out for the stars and stripes.<\/p>\n

So much for that vibe shift<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Wednesday night, golden boy and New Jersey Devil Jack Hughes returned to his home ice in Newark.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5109],"tags":[57440,201,5,576,151,5185,5184,4,177,31286],"class_list":["post-477068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-jersey-devils","tag-cancel-culture","tag-devils","tag-hockey","tag-new-jersey","tag-new-jersey-devils","tag-newjersey","tag-newjerseydevils","tag-nhl","tag-opinion","tag-winter-olympics-2026"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116148445159717627","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}