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Milan: While several American athletes at the Milan-Cortina Olympics have made comments in reaction to President Donald Trump’s trenchant social media posting, the dominant USA women’s ice hockey team has made a clear choice to avoid buying into politics.
In the aftermath of Team USA’s 5-0 crushing of Canada at Milan’s new Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena, the reigning Olympic champions and main rivals to the USA, two American players declined to offer views on Trump and his commentary on athletes, such as freestyle skier Hunter Hess, whom the president called “a loser” in a social media post.
Team USA focused on sport rather than politics after their 5-0 win over Canada in the women’s ice hockey.Credit: Getty Images
A third player said that she supported the right of fellow athletes to exercise free speech.
The USA ice hockey men’s and women’s team communications lead at Milan-Cortina also stepped in when this masthead and a German reporter sought comments from star player Caroline Harvey – one of the best performed in the rout of Canada – and shut down any further political questions.
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“We’re talking about hockey you guys, you want to talk about hockey,” said Jeff Fischer. “They don’t want to talk about that [politics or Trump and athletes].”
Harvey had just indicated that she did not wish to discuss political issues. “No politics, just sport.”
Asked about the comments of Winter Olympics American athletes reacting to Trump’s posts, American defender Cayla Barnes said the USA team was not looking at social media and were focused on staying “within the locker room” in their bid for a gold medal.
“Honestly, we have been off social media, haven’t really been focusing on things that have been outside of the locker room. We try to stay within the walls of the rink. We’re trying to compete, and we’re focusing on our team in the locker room and our games at hand. Our ultimate goal is a gold medal and this is what we’re focused on.”
Another team USA member, forward Alex Carpenter, said she respected the right of people to take positions when asked about the American athletes who had spoken out in response to Trump.
“Definitely aware of what fellow athletes have said and, you know, I respect everyone’s right to their free speech and, you know, I think that says a lot about them as people and about Team USA as a whole group.”
Trump’s vice president J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio watched the USA women’s ice hockey team demolish Czechia 5-1 and Vance, flanked by boxer Jake Paul (whose fiancee Jutta Leerdam won speed skating gold for the Netherlands), also attended the same team’s 5-0 shutout of Finland.
The USA’s team were outstanding in containing Canada and were in control from the outset of a grudge match that did not reach the anticipated level, due to the Americans’ superiority. Harvey scored one of USA’s five goals and had three assists, while Hannah Bilka scored twice.
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The dominance was ominous for the Olympics, given that Canada won gold at the last Olympics. The only caveat was that the Canadians were without their premier player and captain, Marie-Philip Poulin, who suffered a lower body injury on Monday night in a 5-1 victory over the Czechs. Poulin is one of the best players in the history of the women’s game and Canada was offensively impotent without their captain.
The two teams, however, are still favoured to meet in the gold medal game, in what is a measure of the apparent gap the talented team USA has opened up over the field.
The Winter Olympic Games will be broadcast on the 9Network, 9Now and Stan Sport.
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