Eileen Gu, the American-born and-raised skier who competes for China, is a hero and a role model. The U.S. men’s hockey team, comprised of Americans competing for America, are ghouls who deserve no less than total career ruin.
So go the conclusions of the left-wing media’s estimable sports writers.
Gu appeared on the cover of Time Magazine in late January, posing for a glamorous photoshoot for the magazine.
Charlotte Harpur, writing for The New York Times’ (NYT) The Athletic, lauds Gu’s analytical mind and her many Olympic medals: “You would be forgiven if you thought Gu was a quasi-human robot expertly created by artificial intelligence, so eloquent are her responses to the media,” says Harpur.
“The scientist, politician, skier, model, and student is like a magician, the audience dazzled by her mastery but somewhat irked by how she does it.”
Another article from The Athletic praises Gu in a similar manner: “She is engaging, illuminating and introspective in this setting, seizing her biggest stage to showcase some of her greatest skills, effortlessly dancing between English and Mandarin, discussing President Trump one minute and the physics of her jumps the next.”
“She’s become bigger than skiing. Bigger than sport.”
Alex Abad-Santos, writing for left-wing outlet Vox, celebrated Gu as a “winner,” while calling the U.S. men’s hockey team “loser[s].”
3,196 likes, 173 comments - voxdotcom on February 24, 2026: "At every Olympic Games, there are winners, and there are many more losers. Dozens of gold, silver, bronze…and a whole bunch of people who walk away with nothing. 🥇🥈🥉 Officially, Norway won the most in Milan and Cortina, with 41 total medals, 18 of which were gold. The US (with 33 overall and 12 gold), and Italy (with 30 total and 10 gold) came in second and third place, respectively. But the medals only tell one part of the story. There are tales of heroism, resilience, and sometimes the occasional credit card fraud that medals cannot fully capture. Yes, credit card fraud! And those are the bits that tend to become iconic moments in Olympic history over time. Read more about the winners and losers of these Games at the link in our bio. 📸: Joosep Martinson/Getty Images, Tang Xinyu/VCG via Getty Images, Jamie Squire/Getty Images, Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images, Matthew Stockman/Getty Images, and Mattia Ozbot/Getty Images".
Jerry Brewer, writing for The Athletic, also scorns the U.S. men’s hockey team for being too friendly with the president of the United States. (RELATED: INGERSOLL: The Meltdown Over Trump, USA Hockey Continues)
The contrast in how the media is treating an athlete who chose profit and abandoned her country to win medals for the CCP vs athletes who proudly won medals for America is insane and embarrassing for them. pic.twitter.com/lYMLUBYZV9
— AG (@AGHamilton29) February 25, 2026
“In the immediate aftermath of their victory, the team took a customary, congratulatory call from President Donald Trump, and some players laughed at a misogynistic joke about the gold-winning women’s hockey team that many Americans wouldn’t find funny.”
Truly, where would we be without journalists to tell us which jokes are funny?
You can hear the genuine pride in Donald Trumps voice when he called the Team USA Hockey Team pic.twitter.com/ch6GbXShwh
— Harrison Krank (@HarrisonKrank) February 23, 2026
“I do believe I probably would be impeached, okay?”
The premise of the joke — that the left is hyper-sensitive to perceived slights against supposedly marginalized groups — seems to have been lost on left-wing journalists.
Brewer admits that the hockey team’s actions were not objectionable in and of themselves.
“In normal times, this would be an obligatory celebration for a championship team. They take presidential calls. They party too hard. They visit Washington and stroll through the corridors of power.”
“But this isn’t a neutral climate. This isn’t a neutral president. And in a nation this polarized, the proximity carries weight whether the players are being intentional or merely naive. America no longer experiences these rituals in the same way, and it may never again. Athletes would be wise to recognize that, in this climate, celebration is easily repurposed into political capital.” (RELATED: ‘Stupid, Self-Absorbed And Misogynistic’: Keith Olbermann Crashes Out About Team USA Hockey, President Trump Invite)
Win a Gold Medal for China and our media will turn you into a hero.
— Theo Wold (@RealTheoWold) February 24, 2026
Win a Gold Medal for America and our media will turn you into the villains. pic.twitter.com/qx8rlrX7cj
Is any president “neutral”? Of course not. Former President Barack Obama certainly had his detractors. But the left believes their politics and politicians to be neutral. They believe any reasonable observer of reality would arrive at the same set of conclusions as themselves: Love is love, abortion is healthcare, no human being is illegal on stolen land, etc.
Mary Clarke, a sports writer for USA Today, claims the “United States men’s team failed to meet the moment and then some.” Clarke, like Brewer, takes issue with the men’s hockey team daring to laugh at Trump’s joke: “It’s especially disappointing considering the lip service the men’s team paid to the women throughout the Olympics.”
Could it be possible that they simply have a sense of humor? Or that they hoped to demonstrate some courtesy to the leader of the free world?
“To laugh at a joke disparaging your United States teammates and peers who won the same accomplishments as you just a few days prior is incredibly disappointing behavior.”
There’s no tone quite so grating as that of a hall monitor.
Follow Natalie Sandoval on X: @NatSandovalDC
