The Ugly Underbelly of the US Men’s Hockey Victory
The real Olympic heroes were the athletes who stood up for each other—and against Trump.
Team USA poses for after winning the men’s gold-medal hockey match between Canada and the United States on February 22, 2026, in Milan, Italy.
(Monika Majer / Getty Images)Update: Since the publication of this piece, a video of President Donald Trump making a locker-room call to the US men’s hockey team emerged. During the call, Trump invited the team to the State of the Union and mocked the women’s team while the men laughed. The women’s team has declined the invitation to the State of the Union. —Dave Zirin
The US men’s Olympic hockey team beat Canada 2–1 in overtime in the gold medal game at the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics on Sunday. The Canadian team showed up angry. Our neighbors to the north were upset because of how bellicose and erratic President Donald Trump has been toward the nation he proposed making the 51st state.
“Canadians feel insulted by who they thought were their allies. It’s a matter of pride,” one fan from Nova Scotia said to The New York Times.
As for Team USA, it was ready to fight—literally—because Trump had deemed Canada, Canadian Bacon—style, the enemy, and the players were ready to follow orders. The US squad was chock-full of Trump supporters who were more than willing to provide a photo op for Vice President JD Vance and the embarrassing FBI director, Kash Patel.
When Trump called the US skier Hunter Hess “a real Loser” for expressing nuanced “mixed feelings” about representing the United States, US hockey player Brady Tkachuk sided with Trump, saying, “To represent the US at this stage in the Olympics is one of the greatest honors that I’ve ever had, so I’m truly grateful to be here representing the red, white, and blue.”
Unlike other US Olympians speaking out against this regime, men’s hockey players chose to be lickspittles. In that regard, this hockey team is part of a rather ignominious USA hockey gold-medal tradition. A fan at the 2026 Milano Cortina Games donned a hockey sweater with “1980” emblazoned across the chest, the year a US hockey team became a legendary symbol of national unity. But in the years that followed, Republicans have used that legend to sow division.
Trump holds incredible nostalgia for the “Miracle on Ice” Olympic hockey team of 1980. This was the squad that, in one of the great Olympic upsets of all time, defeated the USSR in the semifinals before winning the gold. Pundits turned the victory into a right-wing symbol. It showed that the country had moved away from the social struggles of the 1960s and ’70s and embraced the crypto-fascist variant of patriotism best exemplified in the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan.
In 2020, many members of that 1980 team rallied with Trump in Las Vegas, wearing their MAGA hats, laughing at Trump’s mockery of the Oscar-winning film Parasite, nodding solemnly as he asked why they don’t make films like Gone With the Wind anymore, and praising Trump repeatedly. For some reason, Trump asked team captain Mike Eruzione to tell the crowd he was a good golfer and Eruzione responded, “Whatever you say, sir.”
That team is now in their 60s and 70s, and Trump—as he did when partying with Jeffrey Epstein—is looking for younger models. The gold-medal-winning team at the Milano Cortina Olympics includes players who have caped for the president. Last year, at a White House visit following the Florida Panthers’ Stanley Cup victory, Matthew Tkachuk (Brady’s older brother) heaped praise on Trump: “It’s kind of like that cherry-on-top finish…to be here at the White House today and meet the president of the United States and lucky enough to have him honor us is just so cool and something that I honestly never would’ve imagined.” Addressing Trump directly, Tkachuk added, “This is such an incredible day for myself. You wake up every day really grateful to be an American, so thank you.”
This is 1980 cosplaying, but unlike then, the ugly underbelly is there for everyone to see. Partying with the players afterward was Patel, guzzling beer, jumping around, and thumping the table like a drunken frat boy. It was a humiliating display. He was there to represent Trump—and given Patel’s craven, ham-handed coverups of Trump’s connections to Epstein—there could not have been a better stand in for Trump himself.
The real Olympic heroes are the athletes who won’t—as the right-wing noise machine blared—“shut up and ski.”
Eileen Gu, superstar freestyle skier who herself experienced extreme online abuse when she chose to represent China, rather than the United States at the 2022 Winter Olympics, responded, “I’m sorry that the headline that is eclipsing the Olympics has to be something so unrelated to the spirit of the Games. It really runs contrary to everything the Olympics should be.”
Hess himself responded to Trump—and the torrent of MAGA vitriol that he unleashed—like a champ. Acknowledging that being attacked by a sitting US president led to “probably the hardest two weeks of my life,” he channeled the stress into humor. After completing a run on the halfpipe, he gave L-sign with his hand and said of his imbroglio with Trump: “I definitely wear [it] with pride.” Hess added with a twinkle, “Apparently I am a loser. I am leaning into it.”
US snowboarder extraordinaire Chloe Kim also defended Hess. “It’s important in moments like these for us to unite and kind of stand up for one another with what’s going on,” she said.
Then cross-country skier Zak Ketterson also stood up for Hess, saying, “I think it’s pretty childish to come at somebody for exercising their free speech right, and considering that side of the political spectrum always champions free speech, it’s a little, I think, surprising to see them so triggered.”
He was backed by fellow US cross-country skier and medal winner Ben Ogden, who stated, “I choose to believe that I live in a country where people can express their opinions without backlash.” He had the guts to mention the president directly: “Certainly not…without backlash from the president. And that was really disappointing to see, but I hope it doesn’t continue like that.”
That’s exactly it. During the Milano Cortina Olympics, Trump has been the crotchety, disgruntled grump punching down on a US Olympian from a lesser-known sport. To see the wealthiest, most privileged athletes on Team USA—the Tkachuk brothers play in the NHL, where their salaries dwarf those of freestyle skiers like Hess—is not just disappointing; it’s nauseating. But the solidarity proffered by fellow Olympians was heartening. This is a pick-a-side moment in the United States, and they picked the right one.
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