The U.S. men's Olympic hockey team won gold -- and then lost the room

[Nevilledog]

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7068426/2026/02/24/usa-mens-olympics-hockey-gold-donald-trump/

No paywall link
https://archive.li/mAfu4

For a few hours on Sunday afternoon, the nation felt smaller. This America of vast divides and rickety social bridges deferred, briefly, to the unifying power of sports. Strangers high-fived in bars. Grownups hugged with wet eyes. Politics and culture wars were suspended for the length of three heart-stopping periods of hockey and one cathartic overtime.

The U.S. men’s hockey team won Olympic gold for the first time since the “Miracle on Ice” 46 years ago, and for a time, the joy belonged to everyone.

By the next day, it didn’t.

In the immediate aftermath of their victory, the team took a customary, congratulatory call from President Donald Trump, and some players laughed at a misogynistic joke about the gold-winning women’s hockey team that many Americans wouldn’t find funny. They celebrated in the locker room with beer-chugging FBI Director Kash Patel, who is now under scrutiny for using taxpayer money to fund a sports getaway. Then, after a wild night of partying in Miami following their return from Italy, some members of the team announced plans to step in the House Chamber – a stage upon which symbolism is never neutral – and make an appearance at Trump’s State of the Union.

In normal times, this would be an obligatory celebration for a championship team. They take presidential calls. They party too hard. They visit Washington and stroll through the corridors of power.
But this isn’t a neutral climate. This isn’t a neutral president. And in a nation this polarized, the proximity carries weight whether the players are being intentional or merely naive. America no longer experiences these rituals in the same way, and it may never again. Athletes would be wise to recognize that, in this climate, celebration is easily repurposed into political capital.

*snip*