FOX News. <\/a>\u201cWe\u2019re just trying to represent our country the best way we can.\u201d<\/p>\nFrankly, I could write a whole separate article about why that statement within itself is incorrect, but I\u2019ll leave it at this. Nothing about bringing in a polarizing political figure to a game with this much pent-up geopolitical tension swirling is representing an entire nation. 50.2% of the voting public did not cast a ballot in favor of him retaking the mantle of president. There\u2019s no representation of the country there.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Guerin, as the general manager, was in charge of selecting who represented the U.S. in Milan. A decision that, given the NHL\u2019s return, should realistically consist of the best players available, hence the mantra of \u201cbest-on-best\u201d hockey that has been thrown around since the news was announced.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yet, that isn\u2019t exactly what the U.S. did.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now, blaming the team selections on cultivating a certain locker room culture is not something provable. If Guerin had an agenda to make a political statement, the public will almost certainly never find out without some sort of career-ending press leak.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, what I can say is this. Dallas Stars forward Jason Robertson leads all American-born players in goals this season, tied with Minnesota Wild forward Matt Boldy. He is also second in the league in points for American-born players, trailing only Eichel.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Eichel and Boldy were given the call from Guerin to go to Milan. Robertson was not.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On an unrelated note, Robertson is Filipino-American.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But going into the Olympics, it seemed like the controversy had died down. Canada\u2019s win at the Four Nations Face-Off mitigated the impact of Trump\u2019s endorsement, and besides the Robertson controversy, there appeared to be plausible deniability for Team USA.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Maybe, I naively hoped, the sport and team I care about wouldn\u2019t become a public MAGA circus.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Oh, how innocent I was.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The U. S. won gold on a golden overtime goal, securing the U. S. a 2-1 victory over rival Canada Feb. 22, on the final day of the 2026 Olympic Games.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After a tournament characterized by limited lip service from the President, a few weeks worth of patriotism and good will was wiped away in a single evening.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It started where much of the pristine, polished public relations of professional hockey go to die: the locker room.\u00a0<\/p>\n
An Instagram Live from forward Dylan Larkin displayed a pretty normal locker room celebration. Larkin, with his gold medal in his hand, hair still wet from the game, jamming along to vaguely patriotic music in the background.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So, who would you expect him to be celebrating with? Perhaps teammates like forward Jack Hughes, who scored the game-winning goal while Larkin was on the ice. Maybe a member of the coaching staff, who made the call to put Hughes, Larkin and defenseman Zach Werenski on the ice together in that game-sealing moment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Whatever answer you\u2019d assume is wrong. Because Larkin is bumping shoulders with the Director of the FBI, Kash Patel.\u00a0<\/p>\n
My question is, what did Patel do for this team? Did he make 41 saves to will the Americans to overtime against one of the most lethal offenses in Olympic hockey history? No, that was starting goaltender Connor Hellebuyck. Did he make a crucial goal-line stop to keep the Canadian\u2019s from going up a goal? Nope, that was defenseman Charlie McAvoy. He didn\u2019t make a single decision to get Team USA to this point.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So why is he celebrating with the team?\u00a0<\/p>\n
But I could almost forgive this. I could almost forgive the possible use of taxpayer dollars for Patel to fly to Italy on the FBI Gulfstream G550 to party in the U.S. locker room if the team had just shut their mouths for once. I could\u2019ve played this off as the conservative undertone to the \u201cboys club\u201d of hockey.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But then another video dropped.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For those who haven\u2019t seen it, Team USA huddles around Patel, beers still in hand from the party that is momentarily on pause. On the phone with Patel is the U.S. president.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t new. Like I said, the parallels to the Four Nations Tournament are haunting. Trump called that team before the championship game. This time, it was after.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For a call from Trump, it was pretty innocuous at first. Did I wish he was not buzzed into the locker room at all? Absolutely, but again, my standards for these men and this sport are practically in the center of the Earth, especially after the Four Nations fiasco.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But then, in true Trump fashion, the President went from boastful congratulations to straight-up misogyny in a single breath.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI must tell you, we\u2019re going to have to bring the women\u2019s team. You do know that?\u201d Trump said. \u201cI do believe I probably would be impeached.\u201d<\/p>\n
Raucous laughter followed the jab by the president. As if there is anything funny about the Team USA women\u2019s hockey.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For those unaware of USA women\u2019s hockey, that term \u201chistoric\u201d is a bit of an understatement. Not only do they have diversity \u2014 forward\/defenseman Laila Edwards is the first Black woman to compete for Team USA in Olympic women\u2019s ice hockey and there are multiple out members of the LGBTQ+ community on the roster \u2014 they have some serious fucking talent.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In seven straight wins, the squad only allowed two goals total. Goaltender Aerin Frankel saved 97 shots over a five-game span, and set the record as the first goaltender in Olympic women\u2019s hockey history to have three shutouts in a single Games.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That\u2019s historic. A lot more historic than breaking a 46-year-long curse that frankly, shouldn\u2019t have gone on for this long. The men\u2019s team has had ample chances to repeat as gold medalists. The women\u2019s team was able to win two Olympic gold medals in that span and have only attended the Winter Games since 1998.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On a purely hockey level, that is a yikes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But on a personal and political level?\u00a0<\/p>\n
For a league that prides itself on its inclusivity, a group of men readily laughing with a misogynistic figure that is demeaning their equals \u2014 if not superiors \u2014 in this Olympics is a huge step back.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If the U.S. men\u2019s national ice hockey team cannot support the U.S. women\u2019s national ice hockey team behind closed doors, what are the chances they support women\u2019s hockey as a whole? What about hockey players of different races, sexualities or physical capabilities?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Because accepting the President\u2019s offer for a private flight to the U.S. Capitol for the State of the Union address is damning enough. Not to pick favorites, but the U.S. women turned down Trump\u2019s half-hearted offer to them the following day.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So no, hockey isn\u2019t for everyone. No matter how much marketing and PR the NHL and USA Hockey tries to spin this situation with, that conclusion is as clear as that locker room footage. As it stands now, the \u201cboys club\u201d remains just that, solidified by the boys \u2014 not men \u2014 who won the U.S. an Olympic gold medal in ice hockey.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cHockey is for everyone.\u201d The initiative, started by the NHL in 2017, is meant to be the pinnacle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480385,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[23,5,3255],"class_list":{"0":"post-480384","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-team-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480384","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=480384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}