What feedback would you give to the American men’s hockey team that won a gold medal at the Winter Olympics for the third time in history and the first since the 1980 Miracle on Ice?
That’s right: They failed to meet the moment.
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That is the takeaway from Mary Clark, writing for For The Win, the USA Today offshoot that is allegedly focused on sports. Yes, the United States men’s hockey team did not live up to her standards, not for anything they did on the ice, but for the crime they committed in the locker room: talking to the president and laughing at a joke.
Yes, the men’s hockey team has morally failed the nation because it accepted a call from President Donald Trump after winning a gold medal in the most high-profile event of the 2026 Winter Olympics. Trump made a joke about how he would “have to” invite the women’s hockey team, which also won gold, to the White House along with the men, otherwise he would be impeached. The men laughed.
That is enough to prove to Clark that these men are sexist moral failings who hate women and bring great shame to America. That one joke is enough to prove to her that all the support the men gave the women’s team, including attending the games and highlighting their achievements, was nothing more than lip service. After all, if they truly loved women, they would have told the president that the joke was not funny. At all. They would have given him some feminist literature to read over and thrown FBI Director Kash Patel out of the locker room while chanting “women’s rights are human rights,” or something to that effect.
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This has been the overwhelming response from national sports media, which are filled with liberals who don’t like sports as much as they dream of changing the course of politics and having their moment in the political sun. Writers for both the Atlantic and the Athletic have shamed the men’s team for not being progressive political allies and rejecting any interaction with the president. Liberal social media users, who deluded themselves into thinking hockey players are woke sports warriors, have flooded the mentions of the National Hockey League to whine about the American men.
All the while, everyday Americans are proud of Team USA and their great golden victory, because normal people do not require their politics to be affirmed by athletes or celebrities to make themselves feel good. The American men’s hockey team met the moment. Liberal sports writers, on the other hand, did not.