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This forum seems to be missing the biggest actual culture war battleground of the week: The US Hockey Gold Medal team.
For those who haven't heard, the US Men's Hockey Team won the gold medal over Canada, on an overtime goal by Jack Hughes. The team celebrated, the country celebrated, and everything was great, until it wasn't.
Kash Patel was part of the celebration, for some reason. Apparently he's a hockey fan, as I've read he was attending games when Ovechkin was nearing Gretzky's goal record. And then there was a call from Donald Trump to congratulate the team, where he made a joke ("I'll have to invite the women's team, too, or they'll impeach me.")
Of course, the usual suspects have come out of the woodwork to scold then men for being bros.
Jodi Walker called them losers.
The New York Times decided to praise the defector while shaming the victorious Americans.
Mary Clarke says that they failed to meet the cultural moment, and boy is she waging the culture war. Some highlights include reminding us that a black woman won a gold medal in hockey, bemoaning that the NHL is 44% Republican, decrying the hiring of someone accused of and found not guilty of sexual assault, implying his guilt.
Then, finally, she has the gall to say this:
Well, Mary, you are responsible for writing the message of this team, and you are participating in making sure the message you dislike is the one that's getting spread.
For a reasonable take, I always go back to the characteristic machine:
And a quoted response
This really does cut to the core of it. There is a civic ritual, which we can all participate in. Civic in a way that crosses race and sex and religion, or should, at least. But not anymore. We are not allowed to have civic rituals unless they pay obeisance to the cult of multiculturalism, unless they celebrate black women and foreigners and anyone but straight white men.
ETA: Two more posts, more from the fans with substacks and less from the professional pundits:
Don't Let Them Fucking Take It From You
The Sports Exile
This second one really pissed me off, and this quote in particular. Patriotism was abandoned by the left, not weaponized by the right. You left (pun intended). As evidenced by a later paragraph:
"I'm proud to be an American" "Wow, why do you only care about yourself, why don't you care about me?"
They reveal themselves as unamerican at every opportunity.
I agree and like the civic ritual framing.
An additional angle is that a lot of people on the left have this deeply seeded sense that Men's Hockey takes the spotlight awayfrom the Virtuous Valkyries of Women's Hockey. This is why they're aren't constant viral articles about the NHL during the regular NHL season.
And interesting comparison to make is with the cringey hyper fawning of both the mainstream media and much of twitter over the Racoon Haired Ice Skating queen (I can't remember he name ... Aileen? Or is that the PLA Skier?). While I respect her gold medal accomplishment, I fail to see any reason for attraction. She's a mix of aweirdo chungus manic pixie dream girl. I've seen ring leaning twitter accounts call her "bubbly." I've seen girlboss millenials call her "everything" (which isn't specific enough to help). My operating theory is that the winter olympics create a Women Are Wonderful hyper-booster. I'm not sure why (in the Summer olympics I feel like only gymnastics is similar).
Returning to Hockey, I think the Men's Team hate is a clunky means, in part, to try and shoehorn the Women's Team into this Women Are Wonderful gravity distortion field.
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