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A Canadian media outlet compared the U.S. Olympic men’s hockey team to “monkeys” in a “zoo” on Wednesday for attending the State of the Union address after meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House.
The players entered the State of the Union on Tuesday wearing sweaters that said “USA” and carrying their newly won gold medals. Team USA defeated Canada in overtime to win gold earlier on Sunday. The Olympic win ended a 46-year drought in men’s hockey dating back to the 1980 “Miracle on Ice.”
While the players’ arrival at the presidential address earned them a bipartisan standing ovation, The Globe and Mail opinion writer Cathal Kelly criticized their decision to attend.
“This was a zoo. They were the monkeys,” wrote Kelly in an article published Wednesday.
“On Tuesday, they were props for the actual star and got nothing for it but grief,” he later added.
Kelly continued, repeatedly questioning the intelligence of the Team USA athletes, noting he would be “shocked if more than a handful of them had ever read a book that wasn’t Harry Potter.”
He also criticized their USA sweaters, comparing them to an “early middle-aged Glee Club” and claiming they had a side of “sycophancy.”
“Going around in public dressed up like an early middle-aged Glee Club is not very Michael Jordan. It was the sweaters, with a side of sycophancy,” wrote Kelly.
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Trump invited both the gold-medal winning men’s and women’s hockey teams to the White House and the State of the Union.
The women’s team declined the invitation, citing scheduling conflicts.
Since appearing at the address and visiting the White House, the team has faced online backlash. Several team members were photographed with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. The players wore red-and-white USA hats, and one person wore a “Make America Great Again” hat.
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But Kelly argued liberals shouldn’t be surprised by some of their political associations, noting the “only political bone in any of their bodies is the tax bone.”
“Try to remember that these men were not raised to be independent thinkers,” Kelly wrote. “They are designed from childhood to live in packs.”
“Whenever a new alpha — like the current U.S. President — wanders into their midst, even telephonically, their instinct is to roll over and start chattering,” he added.
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He noted that many athletes play alongside Canadians in the National Hockey League and said they should have “played this straight down the middle.”
“Evidently, their big idea was to lean hard into the red, white and blue. Instead of sticking it to Canada, they’d stick it to the Libs,” he added.
But Kelly said he believes the hockey players weren’t in it for the politics, and that “if the U.S. were to elect a Communist, they’d have shown up to his party, too.”
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