Actually, I lied. I do want to talk about it.
Yes, I am Canadian, and yes, losing both the women's and men's gold games sucked, but I am also a grown ass adult and am able to move on with my life and hope that we can take home the gold in 4 years.
But that's not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about what happened after that men's game, genuinely being one of the most vile things I've watched unfold in sports.
What was supposed to be a heartwarming moment of Team USA paying respect to one of their late former players, Johnny Gaudreau, by carrying around his jersey, bringing his three-year-old daughter and two-year-old son out for the team photo, and the players calling their own kids, only for the players to ruin the moment by later partying with Kash Patel in their locker room. Kash Patel, the guy who has spent his entire time as FBI director covering up the Epstein files and shielding Trump from any accountability around his connections to the convicted child sex trafficker.
Kash Patel later pulled out his phone so that Trump could call in, inviting the men's team to visit, but that he's "going to have to bring the women too" or he'd "probably be impeached." And the room laughed. The women's team, which also won gold by beating Canada in overtime. The same game that broke viewership records, only to be turned into a punchline, an obligation.
Jack and Quinn Hughes were in that room laughing. Their mom, Ellen Weinberg-Hughes, is a former U.S. women's national team player. She won silver at the '92 World Championship. She was literally working as a consultant for the women's team at these Olympics and helped them win gold three days before her sons did. And they just sat there and smiled through it. That's their mom's life's work being turned into a joke, and they nodded along.
The women's team declined the invitation. That tells you everything you need to know.
Then someone yells at the president to "close the northern border." Half these guys play in Canada. They earn their millions in Canadian cities, from Canadian fans, in Canadian arenas.
And then there's the Tkachuk brothers...
Matthew Tkachuk was at the White House last year after the Panthers won the Cup and was so emotional about meeting Trump, calling it "the cherry on top." The moment he lands home in Miami from the games, he's telling reporters it was an "honour to represent him." Not the country. Him. He's talking about Trump.
Brady Tkachuk, the captain of the Ottawa Senators. Ottawa, Canada's capital. Before the gold medal game, he's said to ESPN there's "hatred" toward Canada. After Trump called American skier Hunter Hess a "real Loser" for having mixed feelings about representing the U.S. under this administration, Brady essentially sided with Trump. And now he's skipping practice to fly to Washington for the State of the Union before coming back to Ottawa to play for Canadian fans on Thursday.
The captain of a team in Canada's capital is ditching practice to attend the State of the Union for a president who has threatened Canada with tariffs, talked about annexation, and whose people in that locker room literally asked him to close the border to the country Brady works in. And he just goes along with it like none of that is happening.
This should have been about Hellebuyck's 41 saves. About Johnny Gaudreau's kids on the ice. About a 46-year drought finally ending. Instead it got co-opted into a locker room MAGA rally and not a single player in that room had the spine to push back.
That's not a victory for sport.
