USA USA USA
- Thread starter Flyjunky
- Start date
IdahoBeav
WKR
- Joined
- Jan 29, 2017
- Messages
- 1,572
Next up is the WBC. Hopefully, we win, but unfortunately, our roster is hampered by prioritization of MLB. Japan will be the heavy favorite, and they are extremely nationalist, lol
Arcticmanak
Lil-Rokslider
An incredible game that our boys gutted out to get the win! Boldy's goal was grit, finesse and a thing of beauty. McDavid and MacKinnon getting out played on Hughes' game winner was oh so sweet. Hellebuyck's heroics in net kept us in the game. Hughes' patriotic remarks afterwards were genuine and touching. So many things to celebrate there! It was a date with destiny for Team USA!!!
Go work for a large company and bitch publicly. See what happens. And see how many job offers come flooding in.
Used to be a saying: if ya aint got nothing good to say, keep yer mouth shut.
full choke
WKR
- Joined
- Feb 28, 2012
- Messages
- 575
NRA4LIFE
WKR
All of this. Hellebuyck had maybe the best game of his life. And the tributes to Johnny Gaudreau were tear jerking.
OP
OP
Flyjunky
WKR
- Joined
- Jun 22, 2020
- Messages
- 1,823
It’s laughable to me.
An athlete that takes advantage of using our coaching, facilities, equipment, etc, and then joins another national team? Fk that.
Also, I’m sure the Chinese money thrown at her had no influence
diamond10x
WKR
Nobody is forcing you or anyone else to stay here in the US. If you don't like it GTFO.
People are sick and tired of this crap that comes from a certain side of the political spectrum. Exactly why nobody cares about the guy who ran his mouth and got 10th place or the chick that is being paid by the Chinese, but are proud of and celebrating the guys who left it all out on the ice because of their love of country.
displacedtexan
WKR
- Joined
- Feb 12, 2022
- Messages
- 2,794
I never said I didn't like it here. Or that I liked any place better.
My bad, I thought I'd heard a bunch of complaining (including in this thread) about the ski bum saying he doesn't love everything going on.
Which to me just doesn't sound like a scathing condemnation, it actually sounds like how most people who have ever lived would describe the world.
Backyard
WKR
So what I see here is if you’re not with us, you’re against us, so GTFO? Wrong. That is not what this country is about.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
diamond10x
WKR
If that's what you think my point was you're free to interpret it that way, just know you're somewhere out in left field.
In true fashion though, USA hockey winning gold and having a deep love for their country triggers a specific subset of members here. Can't wait to see them celebrated at the SOTU address this week as they are outstanding examples of the American Spirit.
hebertbrian
Lil-Rokslider
- Joined
- Jul 1, 2015
- Messages
- 111
You can love your country and not love everything about your government, they are not the same...or as Mark Twain said, "Patriotism is supporting your country all the time and your government when it deserves it”. Both major political parties abuse this to divide Americans and grow their own power, to the detriment of freedom and individual liberty.
Sent from my Pixel 9 Pro Fold using Tapatalk
Sent from my Pixel 9 Pro Fold using Tapatalk
The point is that there is a time and a place for everything. Making political statements about your country, when you're there to represent your country, is at a minimum in poor taste. There are likely many others that could've filled those spots on the rosters that wouldn't have felt compelled to bite the hand that feeds them on the world stage.
If ya'll haven't already read it, it's absolutely worth it to read about the Hughes boys' mother. She was also a hockey star, and unfortunately never got to play in the games. The first time women's hockey entered the games was '98 in Nagano, and by then she was past her prime. However, she spent the rest of her life developing all 3 of her boys to become first round draft picks to the NHL. Once they were settled she spent the rest of her life developing others, eventually landing on the coaching staff. It's an amazing story and definitely worth 10 minutes of your time.
If ya'll haven't already read it, it's absolutely worth it to read about the Hughes boys' mother. She was also a hockey star, and unfortunately never got to play in the games. The first time women's hockey entered the games was '98 in Nagano, and by then she was past her prime. However, she spent the rest of her life developing all 3 of her boys to become first round draft picks to the NHL. Once they were settled she spent the rest of her life developing others, eventually landing on the coaching staff. It's an amazing story and definitely worth 10 minutes of your time.
NRA4LIFE
WKR
True as anything. I love the state of WA but our state government is a steaming pile of dog sh&^. I hated hearing some our athletes and what they said about our country. I think most if not all were 2nd or 3rd class athletes and didn't do worth a damned.
A couple of them were figure skaters that won gold in the team competition. They said something to the effect, "...they're just mad because a couple woke bit@hes won gold..." One of them went on to choke in the individual, and the other won her second gold in the individual. The first one was a skier that I don't think medaled.
Not everybody has Facebook, so here is an excerpt:
"Team USA ended a 46-year drought today. The woman who made it possible gave up her Olympic dream so her sons could have one.
She never got to play in the Games.
Ellen Weinberg was 22 years old.
It was April 1992.
She was standing on ice in Tampere, Finland, wearing a Team USA jersey. One of the best female hockey players most people had never heard of.
She had fought her entire life to get there.
Grown up in Dallas, Texas, with no girls' hockey teams. Not a single one. So she laced up her skates and played with the boys.
Eight years old, learning to play hockey against kids twice her size because there was no other option.
She wanted to play just like her older brother Adam.
Twelve years old, sitting in front of a local TV camera with braces on her teeth, telling the reporter she wanted to become a professional hockey player.
Everyone laughed.
She didn't listen.
She earned a scholarship to the University of New Hampshire.
Played three sports — hockey, soccer, lacrosse.
Captained both the hockey and soccer teams.
Led the hockey program to three ECAC championships — 1987, 1990, 1991.
Made the college All-Star team.
Then made Team USA.
At the 1992 IIHF Women's World Championship in Tampere, Finland, she was named to the tournament's first-ever all-star team.
Six players. Five of the other five would become legends.
Cammi Granato. Angela James. Geraldine Heaney. Riikka Sallinen. Four future Hockey Hall of Famers. Plus Manon Rhéaume, who later that year became the first woman to play in one of the four major North American professional sports leagues.
Ellen Weinberg was in that group.
Silver medal.
And she had one dream left.
The Olympics.
Women's hockey wasn't in the Games yet.
But Ellen and her generation had been told it was coming. They hoped for 1994. The Lillehammer Games. That was the finish line she had been chasing her entire life.
Three months after the 1992 World Championship, the IOC made its decision.
Not 1994.
Women's hockey would debut at the 1998 Nagano Games instead.
Six more years from when she first made Team USA.
Ellen would be 29.
Hanging on for another cycle would be difficult. The college talent was rising. The sport was evolving. Time was working against her.
The dream she had worked her entire life to reach — gone.
No Olympic jersey. No podium. No gold medal.
Ellen Weinberg never got to stand on that ice.
Here's what Ellen understood that everyone else missed:
The dream doesn't die just because your time runs out. Sometimes you're building it for someone else.
So she pivoted.
She transitioned into broadcasting. Covered soccer and hockey. Worked for ESPN as a sideline reporter during the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup. Worked for CBS covering the first-ever women's Olympic hockey tournament at the 1998 Nagano Games.
The Games she should have been playing in.
She watched from the broadcast booth as Team USA won gold.
She turned that heartbreak into a career.
She married Jim Hughes, a former ice hockey player and captain at Providence College. Jim built a career coaching and developing talent across professional hockey — assistant coach with the Boston Bruins, working with the Manchester Monarchs, eventually rising to Director of Player Development for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
City after city.
Rink after rink.
They had three sons — Quinn, Jack, and Luke.
And Ellen taught all three of them how to skate.
Her father Jim was coaching in Orlando when the boys first stepped onto ice. Their mother was the one kneeling down on the rink, holding them steady, teaching them the sport she had given her entire life to.
She didn't push.
She didn't have to.
"It's in my blood to be an athlete, to be a hockey player," Jack would say years later.
But here's the part nobody talks about.
Ellen wasn't just their mother. She was their first coach before they had coaches.
She was analyzing games with Jim when the boys were young. Connecting them to skating specialists. Drawing on knowledge most parents simply don't have — she had played at the highest level of international women's hockey, studied the game as a broadcaster, and covered the first-ever women's Olympic hockey tournament for CBS.
The tournament she should have played in.
She turned that heartbreak into expertise.
The family moved from Orlando to Boston to Toronto as Jim's career advanced. Quinn started playing with the Toronto Marlboros. Jack followed. Luke followed.
Then Ellen stepped back from broadcasting when her sons' playing careers got too busy.
She made a choice.
Her career or their careers.
She chose theirs.
The doubters had plenty to say.
"They'll never all make it."
"Hockey families don't produce three first-round picks."
"You're sacrificing too much."
"Three brothers from the same family? In the first round? That's never happened."
She didn't listen.
Quinn Hughes was drafted seventh overall in the 2018 NHL Draft by the Vancouver Canucks.
Jack Hughes was drafted first overall in the 2019 NHL Draft by the New Jersey Devils — the first Jewish player ever selected number one in NHL history.
Luke Hughes was drafted fourth overall in the 2021 NHL Draft, also by the New Jersey Devils.
Three sons.
Three first-round picks.
The first American family in history to produce three siblings selected in the first round of the NHL Draft.
That's when everything changed.
Because Ellen wasn't done.
In 2023, with her boys established in the NHL and her house finally quiet, USA Hockey called.
The women's national team needed a player development consultant. A shoulder to lean on. A mediator between players and coaching staff. Someone who had played the game at the highest level and could be trusted.
They called Ellen.
The connection happened through John Wroblewski, the new U.S. women's head coach. He had previously coached Quinn, Jack, and Luke as teens with the men's national team development program. When he took over the women's team after the 2022 Beijing Games, Ellen texted him, gushing about the talent he'd inherited.
His response: "Hey, can we talk?"
She joined the women's national team as player development consultant in December 2023.
"I just listen and see," she said. "I'm not the expert. What I can do is I'm the connector. So I can get them to the expert."
She helped the team win World Championship gold in 2023 and 2025.
Then came February 2026.
Milan, Italy.
The Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena.
Ellen Weinberg-Hughes walked into that building wearing a Team USA credential.
Not as a player.
Not as a broadcaster.
As part of the coaching staff for the U.S. Women's National Team.
First, the women's team played Canada for gold on February 19th.
The Americans had been a machine all tournament. Outscored opponents 31-1 through six games. Then Canada punched them in the mouth. Kristin O'Neill scored short-handed to put Canada ahead.
It looked like it was over.
Then Hilary Knight — in the final Olympic game of a 19-year USA Hockey career — tied it late.
Overtime.
Megan Keller took the puck up the left wall, danced around Canada's Claire Thompson, slid the puck through Thompson's legs, and flipped a shot over the goalie's right pad.
Gold.
USA 2, Canada 1 in overtime.
Ellen's team. Ellen's gold medal. Thirty-four years after Canada shut out her USA team 8-0 in the 1992 World Championship final.
Payback.
"Never in a million years did I think that I would be in Italy and have the opportunity to be a part of the women's Olympic team," Ellen told The Athletic. "And then to have two sons there, you just count your blessings… and hope for a lot of wins."
Three days later. Sunday. February 22nd.
The men's gold medal game.
Team USA vs. Canada.
In the stands, Jim Hughes watched. In the arena, Ellen wore her credential. On the ice, her sons Quinn and Jack wore red, white, and blue.
Canada had Connor McDavid. Nathan MacKinnon. Cale Makar. They were going for their third straight Olympic gold in tournaments with NHL players.
But Canada was without their captain. Sidney Crosby couldn't play. Lower-body injury from the quarterfinal against Czechia.
Matt Boldy gave the Americans a 1-0 lead six minutes in. Brilliant individual effort — chipped the puck to himself between two Canadian defenders and deked past Jordan Binnington.
Then Canada came.
Wave after wave. Shot after shot.
Connor Hellebuyck stopped everything. A breakaway save on McDavid in the second period. A desperation stick save on Devon Toews in the third.
Cale Makar tied it 1-1 late in the second. A snap shot from the face-off circle that picked the far corner.
Canada outshot the Americans 42-27.
One to one after three periods.
Overtime. Three-on-three. Sudden death.
At 1:41 of overtime, Zach Werenski stripped Nathan MacKinnon of the puck deep in the Canadian zone. He sent it across to Jack Hughes. Wide open.
Jack fired it five-hole past Jordan Binnington.
Gold medal.
Forty-six years since the Miracle on Ice. Forty-six years to the day. February 22nd, 1980 to February 22nd, 2026.
Ended by the family she built.
The U.S. players grabbed a jersey and held it up to the crowd. Number 13. Johnny Gaudreau. Their teammate killed by an alleged drunk driver in August 2024. His two toddlers walked onto the ice to join them.
"This is all about our country right now," Jack told NBC. "I love the USA. I love my teammates. It's unbelievable. The USA Hockey brotherhood is so strong."
His brother Quinn, still on the ice, added: "He just loves the game more than anyone."
He was talking about Jack.
He could have been talking about their mother.
All because a 22-year-old woman from Dallas, Texas, who grew up playing hockey with boys because there were no girls' teams, refused to let the game go.
She turned a silver medal into a gold legacy.
She turned a broadcast booth into a coaching credential.
She turned a dream the IOC delayed by four years into three first-round NHL picks and two Olympic gold medals — one for the women, one for the men."
"Team USA ended a 46-year drought today. The woman who made it possible gave up her Olympic dream so her sons could have one.
She never got to play in the Games.
Ellen Weinberg was 22 years old.
It was April 1992.
She was standing on ice in Tampere, Finland, wearing a Team USA jersey. One of the best female hockey players most people had never heard of.
She had fought her entire life to get there.
Grown up in Dallas, Texas, with no girls' hockey teams. Not a single one. So she laced up her skates and played with the boys.
Eight years old, learning to play hockey against kids twice her size because there was no other option.
She wanted to play just like her older brother Adam.
Twelve years old, sitting in front of a local TV camera with braces on her teeth, telling the reporter she wanted to become a professional hockey player.
Everyone laughed.
She didn't listen.
She earned a scholarship to the University of New Hampshire.
Played three sports — hockey, soccer, lacrosse.
Captained both the hockey and soccer teams.
Led the hockey program to three ECAC championships — 1987, 1990, 1991.
Made the college All-Star team.
Then made Team USA.
At the 1992 IIHF Women's World Championship in Tampere, Finland, she was named to the tournament's first-ever all-star team.
Six players. Five of the other five would become legends.
Cammi Granato. Angela James. Geraldine Heaney. Riikka Sallinen. Four future Hockey Hall of Famers. Plus Manon Rhéaume, who later that year became the first woman to play in one of the four major North American professional sports leagues.
Ellen Weinberg was in that group.
Silver medal.
And she had one dream left.
The Olympics.
Women's hockey wasn't in the Games yet.
But Ellen and her generation had been told it was coming. They hoped for 1994. The Lillehammer Games. That was the finish line she had been chasing her entire life.
Three months after the 1992 World Championship, the IOC made its decision.
Not 1994.
Women's hockey would debut at the 1998 Nagano Games instead.
Six more years from when she first made Team USA.
Ellen would be 29.
Hanging on for another cycle would be difficult. The college talent was rising. The sport was evolving. Time was working against her.
The dream she had worked her entire life to reach — gone.
No Olympic jersey. No podium. No gold medal.
Ellen Weinberg never got to stand on that ice.
Here's what Ellen understood that everyone else missed:
The dream doesn't die just because your time runs out. Sometimes you're building it for someone else.
So she pivoted.
She transitioned into broadcasting. Covered soccer and hockey. Worked for ESPN as a sideline reporter during the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup. Worked for CBS covering the first-ever women's Olympic hockey tournament at the 1998 Nagano Games.
The Games she should have been playing in.
She watched from the broadcast booth as Team USA won gold.
She turned that heartbreak into a career.
She married Jim Hughes, a former ice hockey player and captain at Providence College. Jim built a career coaching and developing talent across professional hockey — assistant coach with the Boston Bruins, working with the Manchester Monarchs, eventually rising to Director of Player Development for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
City after city.
Rink after rink.
They had three sons — Quinn, Jack, and Luke.
And Ellen taught all three of them how to skate.
Her father Jim was coaching in Orlando when the boys first stepped onto ice. Their mother was the one kneeling down on the rink, holding them steady, teaching them the sport she had given her entire life to.
She didn't push.
She didn't have to.
"It's in my blood to be an athlete, to be a hockey player," Jack would say years later.
But here's the part nobody talks about.
Ellen wasn't just their mother. She was their first coach before they had coaches.
She was analyzing games with Jim when the boys were young. Connecting them to skating specialists. Drawing on knowledge most parents simply don't have — she had played at the highest level of international women's hockey, studied the game as a broadcaster, and covered the first-ever women's Olympic hockey tournament for CBS.
The tournament she should have played in.
She turned that heartbreak into expertise.
The family moved from Orlando to Boston to Toronto as Jim's career advanced. Quinn started playing with the Toronto Marlboros. Jack followed. Luke followed.
Then Ellen stepped back from broadcasting when her sons' playing careers got too busy.
She made a choice.
Her career or their careers.
She chose theirs.
The doubters had plenty to say.
"They'll never all make it."
"Hockey families don't produce three first-round picks."
"You're sacrificing too much."
"Three brothers from the same family? In the first round? That's never happened."
She didn't listen.
Quinn Hughes was drafted seventh overall in the 2018 NHL Draft by the Vancouver Canucks.
Jack Hughes was drafted first overall in the 2019 NHL Draft by the New Jersey Devils — the first Jewish player ever selected number one in NHL history.
Luke Hughes was drafted fourth overall in the 2021 NHL Draft, also by the New Jersey Devils.
Three sons.
Three first-round picks.
The first American family in history to produce three siblings selected in the first round of the NHL Draft.
That's when everything changed.
Because Ellen wasn't done.
In 2023, with her boys established in the NHL and her house finally quiet, USA Hockey called.
The women's national team needed a player development consultant. A shoulder to lean on. A mediator between players and coaching staff. Someone who had played the game at the highest level and could be trusted.
They called Ellen.
The connection happened through John Wroblewski, the new U.S. women's head coach. He had previously coached Quinn, Jack, and Luke as teens with the men's national team development program. When he took over the women's team after the 2022 Beijing Games, Ellen texted him, gushing about the talent he'd inherited.
His response: "Hey, can we talk?"
She joined the women's national team as player development consultant in December 2023.
"I just listen and see," she said. "I'm not the expert. What I can do is I'm the connector. So I can get them to the expert."
She helped the team win World Championship gold in 2023 and 2025.
Then came February 2026.
Milan, Italy.
The Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena.
Ellen Weinberg-Hughes walked into that building wearing a Team USA credential.
Not as a player.
Not as a broadcaster.
As part of the coaching staff for the U.S. Women's National Team.
First, the women's team played Canada for gold on February 19th.
The Americans had been a machine all tournament. Outscored opponents 31-1 through six games. Then Canada punched them in the mouth. Kristin O'Neill scored short-handed to put Canada ahead.
It looked like it was over.
Then Hilary Knight — in the final Olympic game of a 19-year USA Hockey career — tied it late.
Overtime.
Megan Keller took the puck up the left wall, danced around Canada's Claire Thompson, slid the puck through Thompson's legs, and flipped a shot over the goalie's right pad.
Gold.
USA 2, Canada 1 in overtime.
Ellen's team. Ellen's gold medal. Thirty-four years after Canada shut out her USA team 8-0 in the 1992 World Championship final.
Payback.
"Never in a million years did I think that I would be in Italy and have the opportunity to be a part of the women's Olympic team," Ellen told The Athletic. "And then to have two sons there, you just count your blessings… and hope for a lot of wins."
Three days later. Sunday. February 22nd.
The men's gold medal game.
Team USA vs. Canada.
In the stands, Jim Hughes watched. In the arena, Ellen wore her credential. On the ice, her sons Quinn and Jack wore red, white, and blue.
Canada had Connor McDavid. Nathan MacKinnon. Cale Makar. They were going for their third straight Olympic gold in tournaments with NHL players.
But Canada was without their captain. Sidney Crosby couldn't play. Lower-body injury from the quarterfinal against Czechia.
Matt Boldy gave the Americans a 1-0 lead six minutes in. Brilliant individual effort — chipped the puck to himself between two Canadian defenders and deked past Jordan Binnington.
Then Canada came.
Wave after wave. Shot after shot.
Connor Hellebuyck stopped everything. A breakaway save on McDavid in the second period. A desperation stick save on Devon Toews in the third.
Cale Makar tied it 1-1 late in the second. A snap shot from the face-off circle that picked the far corner.
Canada outshot the Americans 42-27.
One to one after three periods.
Overtime. Three-on-three. Sudden death.
At 1:41 of overtime, Zach Werenski stripped Nathan MacKinnon of the puck deep in the Canadian zone. He sent it across to Jack Hughes. Wide open.
Jack fired it five-hole past Jordan Binnington.
Gold medal.
Forty-six years since the Miracle on Ice. Forty-six years to the day. February 22nd, 1980 to February 22nd, 2026.
Ended by the family she built.
The U.S. players grabbed a jersey and held it up to the crowd. Number 13. Johnny Gaudreau. Their teammate killed by an alleged drunk driver in August 2024. His two toddlers walked onto the ice to join them.
"This is all about our country right now," Jack told NBC. "I love the USA. I love my teammates. It's unbelievable. The USA Hockey brotherhood is so strong."
His brother Quinn, still on the ice, added: "He just loves the game more than anyone."
He was talking about Jack.
He could have been talking about their mother.
All because a 22-year-old woman from Dallas, Texas, who grew up playing hockey with boys because there were no girls' teams, refused to let the game go.
She turned a silver medal into a gold legacy.
She turned a broadcast booth into a coaching credential.
She turned a dream the IOC delayed by four years into three first-round NHL picks and two Olympic gold medals — one for the women, one for the men."
Google told me that this isn't exactly true. The first widely recognized act of activism was in 1906 when a track star from Ireland couldn't compete for his native country (ironic today), instead being forced to compete for the UK. Since then there have been several incidents due to fall out of foreign wars, rise of communism, etc... In 1968 there was a black power display in MX, widely considered one of the most iconic, and both athletes were kicked out of the competition and the Olympic village.
I don't think anybody is saying athletes shouldn't have a voice, but bagging on the country, that in most cases selected you for the privilege of representing your country on the world stage and sponsored your travel to the games (not all cases I know), is inappropriate. If you are too embarrassed of your country to represent it at the games, than why take another deserving athlete's spot that would've been tickled to compete? As I said, there is a time and place for everything.
cuerro viejo
WKR
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2013
- Messages
- 3,788
I think as general rule, if you are representing something much bigger then yourself, it’s best to keep personal thoughts that are contrary to a great image, silent.
Nah I'm going to strive for a more perfect union like a real patriot does. Improvement doesn't come from ignoring problems and worshipping a flag.
Similar threads
Featured Video
Latest Articles
- Black Diamond Alpine Start Insulated Hoody Review
- Tenacity Firearms with Andrew Whitney
- The Thrill of Moose Hunting with Henry Ferguson
- Final Rise Upland Hand Muff Review
- Kodiak Deer Hunt Round II
- Killing a Timber Giant
- Titanium Suppressor Shootout
- Best Gear of 2025
- Swarovski AT Balance Review
- YETI Outdoor Kitchen Expansion