I was so proud to see both the USA men’s and women’s hockey teams take home gold medals in the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Italy.
The U.S. men’s team hadn’t won gold since the 1980 games, the year of the “Miracle on Ice” against the Soviets. It was thrilling to watch this year’s team finally earn another Olympic title in a dramatic overtime win.
Then FBI director Kash Patel showed up in the men’s locker room, chugging beer, getting a medal put around his neck and even getting President Donald Trump on the line to talk about the team coming to Washington for Trump’s State of the Union address.
Having the president call in isn’t all that unusual. An FBI director taking a private jet to Milan and behaving, as many pointed out, like a Make-a-Wish kid who’s also a beer-chugging frat bro? That was harder to take.
Patel has been a joke while occupying one of the most important law enforcement positions in the federal government. He’s bungled developing criminal investigations like the shooting death of Charlie Kirk and the shooting at Brown University. He’s prioritized posting on X over law enforcement. Used federal resources and taxpayer dollars to follow his country singer girlfriend around. Covered up for sex offenders by stonewalling on the Epstein files, when he did little else but talk about releasing them when he was a podcaster. Now this.
Seeing the FBI director behave in such a way in the men’s locker room on another continent after the gold medal game was both galling and depressing. Just another reminder of how unserious, unprofessional and incompetent this administration really is.
Of course, Trump had to make it worse by including a sexist remark meant as a joke about the women’s team while on the phone with the men. I mean, it was pretty mild by Trump’s standards, but that doesn’t excuse it. Plus, it served as yet another example of how degrading women is like breathing or lying for Trump. He just does it. Perhaps the word has lost all meaning, but it’s still unpresidential.
Given the sport, this whole mess hits a bit closer to home for me.
Maintaining a no-politics zone at the rink
I’ve been a devout hockey fan since around 1992. My son has played the sport since he was 7 years old.
Between his practices and games, my responsibilities as a board member of the nonprofit that runs the West Virginia Wild youth hockey program and the Charleston Chiefs high school hockey program, and time we both invest in volunteering, there are weeks where we spend five to six evenings at the South Charleston Memorial Ice Arena.
If you have a child who’s been involved in our try-hockey-for-free or learn-to-play programs, there’s a good chance we’ve met and I’ve fitted your kid for a chest protector, elbow pads, knee pads, pants, socks, a jersey, a helmet and a stick. I might’ve tied your child’s skates. And during that time, I likely never mentioned my name or what I do for a living. Why would you care? Frankly, when I’m at the rink, I don’t think about my job much.
Hockey is my escape. My sanctuary. It’s one of my passions. And I don’t mean just watching it but also trying to help grow the sport here and make it as easy as possible for other families and their children to access and fall in love with the game.
In all the time I’ve spent at that rink since the boy learned to skate and handle a puck back in April 2021, I don’t think I’ve engaged in a discussion about national politics once. It’s the last thing on my mind. I’m sure it’s come up, but rarely beyond brief, surface-level exchanges, none of which were heated or reflective of the national polarization present today.
It’s a bit different when it comes to state government and the surrounding political landscape of West Virginia. This is Charleston, and a healthy number of the area’s hockey parents either work for the state or for agencies that work with the state. But talking about the Legislature or the government here is a lot like talking about the weather. It’s an easy, familiar topic and, again, conversation rarely gets overly specific or drawn out.
The rink has its own politics. Who made the travel team and who got cut? Who’s getting more playing time? Which kid is keeping someone else’s kid from going to the NHL? Which parents get along with which other parents? Who said what to whom five years ago and is that why they never sit next to each other?
Honestly, I try to avoid most of that too and do my best to act as a more encouraging or mediative force. I’m certainly not perfect, though.
Like many things, there’s a purity to youth hockey that gets bogged down by stuff that is — in the bigger picture —mostly meaningless. But the pure moments, the times you see joy on kids’ faces because they love speeding around the ice or the jubilation of a team that has managed to score a goal or grind out a win, is worth all the other stuff.
Having what should’ve been another pure moment sullied by someone like Patel, who claims to be for the people but ends up misusing resources just like any other corrupt elite so he can fanboy behind the scenes, feels like having a sanctuary breached.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. National politics have certainly taken the joy out of most other sports at some time or another over the past 10 years or so. But I’m only human. It hits different when it happens to something I love.
