
It felt like everyone came together for a brief moment after the US men and women won gold in hockey, but not for long.
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A couple of Sundays ago, I joined millions of people around the world to watch Team USA face off against Team Canada for the gold medal in men's hockey. Not gonna lie, I wanted Team Canada to win and as you surely have heard by now, they didn't. So rough day for me, but a great day for so many friends of mine. One of them, my pal Katrina, texted our group Sunday night, you should have
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seen me weeping tears of joy this morning.
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I texted back. I wept the other kind. But over the course of the following few days, Katrina had buyer's remors. The joy faded and was replaced by a different feeling altogether. On Tuesday night, she texted again. Sean, if it makes you feel any better, basically every single last drop of joy that I receive from the men winning the gold has pretty much been eradicated on today. Explained from Vox. Can we enjoy anything anymore?
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Nothing brings people together quite like Team USA at the Olympic Winter Games. From NBCUniversal's iconic storytelling to the innovative technology across Xfinity and Peacock, Comcast brings the Olympic Games home to America, sharing every moment with millions. When Team USA steps onto the world stage, people aren't just watching, they're cheering together. This winter, everyone is all on the same. Team Comcast, proud partner of Team usa. Let's start with the hockey of it all. Here's Sean McIndoo. He's a hockey guy at the Athletic.
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The joke in hockey is that there is no no sports fan has hockey as their second favorite sport. There are the Die Hards and and then there are the people who don't pay any attention. They don't care. They don't get it. And that has always been a problem for the sport. How do we get more eyes on this product? How do we break out of just being a product that is loved by the die Hard fans and sort of break into the mainstream, into the pop culture world and what have you? And that's why the Olympics is such a great opportunity. Because when the Winter Olympics comes along, everybody's watching. Every sports fan, even people who don't watch sports, get involved in the Olympics and hockey is one of, if not the marquee events of that and on top of that, you look at what's happening in the culture with, with heated rivalry, this show that comes out of nowhere about hockey, among other things. What are you doing? I think, you know, becomes this popular pop culture phenomenon. And so if you can get especially Canada versus USA in a gold medal game, this classic rivalry, what a wonderful opportunity. Everything is suddenly set up perfectly for hockey to have its breakthrough moment that it's been chasing for decades.
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And a spoiler if you haven't gotten to your pre recorded Olympic highlights yet or whatever. But they did it.
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They did it. It was nearly perfect. We all want to see Canada versus the USA in the gold medal game. And not only do we get the gold medal game, but we get three
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skaters aside in overtime, sudden death, sudden death overtime.
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And we get Jack Hughes, a former first overall pick who had been high sticked in the face late in the third period. He's missing teeth, there is blood dripping from his mouth. And he scores. It comes Jack Hughes, it the golden goal for the this immortal goal that immediately goes to the top of, of great American hockey moments, great American sports moments. And he's smiling and he's got the flag wrapped around his shoulders with the missing teeth and this great photo. I mean, you couldn't script it any better to be a feelgood moment for the American sports fan.
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And how quickly do things get weird?
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I'd say you got about five minutes to enjoy the whole thing, maybe a bit more. I mean, I would say everything is great right up until the point where Team USA leaves the ice. And then like any sports team that has just won a huge game, they get into the locker room and that's when the party starts. And that's when, from at least some perspectives, everything starts to go wrong. The coaches are there and the people who work with the team trainers and what have you. But usually that's it. Sometimes you might have family members in there, but even that is a little bit dicey in this case. You had the players and the officials and the trainers. And then you also had Kash Patel, the FBI director.
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Let's go, let's go.
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And hockey enthusiasts and apparent hockey enthusiast. Now, why was he there at the Olympics? I'm sure there's political statesmanship reasons why, why maybe that made sense. Why is he at the hockey game? I guess he's a hockey fan. Why is he in the locker room celebrating? I mean, I double checked. He was not on the team. He did not play a single shift in that gold medal game. So why he is there? And and when I say he's there in the locker room, he's not just there to, you know, pop in and say, hey, good job, boy. Shake a couple of hands and get out. He is chugging beers. He is wearing somebody's gold. Somebody has put their gold medal around his neck and he is wearing it
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for the very concerned media. Yes, I love America and was extremely humbled when my friends, the newly minted gold medal winners on Team usa, invited me into the locker room to celebrate this historic moment with the boys. Greatest country on earth and greatest sport on earth. Fist punch emoji. Hockey emoji. American flag emoji. Right. It's very unusual to see the director of the FBI celebrating a gold medal win in another country during the Olympics. And I guess also trying to prove that he likes beer more than Brett Kavanaugh. We drank beer. I liked beer.
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Still like beer.
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It's less unusual for the President of the United States or any country really, to congratulate gold winning athletes. But even the President's call to these, to these hockey players in the locker room gets a little funky. Yeah.
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And that is always going to set a certain percentage of the audience on edge. What is this guy gonna say? How is this all going to be perceived? But as part of offering his congratulations to Team usa, I have seen hockey goalies have slightly worse games. He makes a comment about inviting them to the White House, which again, is fairly standard, and then says something along the lines of, we're gonna have to bring the woman's team. You do not say, absolutely,
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I do
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believe I probably would be impeached. Okay. And this is. This has been referred to in a few places as. As a case of him making a joke. It's certainly a joke shaped statement, but a lot of people, for obvious reasons, perceive that to be a dig at the American women's team, or at least the suggestion that they are somehow lesser than the men.
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It was a laugh heard around the world.
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Social media ignited women expressing why they
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felt a sting in the team's decision
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to chuckle rather than push back. For the record, the US women's Olympic teams have brought home three gold medals since the sport was introduced in 1998.
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The men, on the other hand, just
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won their first gold in 46 years. 46 years.
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Okay. So just to speed us along, what happens next is that the men from Team USA go and visit the White House a couple of days later, which is not super weird. Then they attend the State of the Union, which is a little more weird. But then something very Weird and very of this particularly cursed moment happens.
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What happens is they take a clip of a player named Brady Tkachuk, who is a player on Team usa. He's a good player, one of their better ones. When Brady Kachuk is not playing for Team usa, his day job is. He is the captain in the NHL of the Ottawa Senators. And if you check your maps, Ottawa is not in the United States. Ottawa is in Canada. And that introduces this whole other element where up here in Canada, I will put it mildly to say Donald Trump is an extraordinarily unpopular figure. Just. Just to give you a sense of how this plays up here, what they had put out there was this video in which they had taken footage of Brady Tkachuk in the aftermath with his gold medal and, you know, looking happy and excited and had digitally altered it to make it appear that he was saying very insulting things about Canada. Canada, we own you, lil bro. We don't want Canada as our 51st
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state until they learn how to play hockey. This is something that the White House has done repeatedly to people who have been arrested by various federal law enforcement, civilians, but here they are doing it to a Team USA gold medal athlete.
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Now, he seemed annoyed that the video had been put out. He didn't, you know, completely disown it or attack it. He sort of tried to thread that needle in that hockey player way of. Of wanting this issue to go away. It's crazy when things get on social media, how. How fast they go. And just, of course, I would. I would never say anything like that. But again, there were a lot of folks who would say, okay, Brady, you didn't say any of that. You didn't deserve to have the White House do that to you. But this is the risk that you run when you allow yourself to become part of this political story, when you allow yourself to become, as some people would describe it, a political prop.
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Do you think some of the goodwill that hockey had gained at the Olympics was squandered by all of this political stuff that happened in the days after?
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Absolutely. I mean, this is hockey's breakthrough moment as far as pop culture in the United States, and yet it just kind of all had this shadow over it. Now, players who typically don't get asked about politics have to be asked questions. And you had Jack Hughes, again, this is the guy with the missing teeth who scored the winning goal. And instead of being asked, you know, how did it feel in that great moment of your life? He's being asked that. And also, how do you feel about
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the women not going to.
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They got busy schedules too. I mean we, I know we're getting
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like everyone's giving us backlash for all
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the social media stuff.
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Questions like that a lot of hockey players aren't comfortable with, and whatever answer you give is going to look bad to somebody. And so it just kind of becomes this mess. And again, it's that feeling of in today's political climate, certainly we just can't have nice things.
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Maybe not Sean, but maybe check out the PWHL if you're looking for a nice hockey thing when we're back on Today. Explained Is everything Politics now? Your little one grew three inches overnight. Adorable. Also expensive. Sell their pint sized pieces on Depop and list them in minutes with no selling fees because somewhere a dad refuses to pay full price for the clothes his kids will outgrow tomorrow and he's ready to buy your son's entire wardrobe right now. Consider your future growth. Bird budget secured. Start selling on Depop where taste recognizes taste. Payment processing fees and boosting fees still apply. See website for details.
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hey everybody, Asted Herndon here. I wanted to let you know that Vox Media is returning to south by Southwest in Austin for live tapings of your favorite podcast. Join us from March 13 through March 15 for live tapings of Pivot, Teffy Talks, Professor G's Markets. Where should we begin with Esther Perel and the special live taping of Today Explained, hosted by yours truly. The Vox Media podcast stage will also feature sessions from Brene Brown and Adam Grant, Marcus Brownlee, Keith Lee, Vivian Tu, Robin Arzon and more. Visit voxmedia.comsouthbysouthwest to pre register and get a special discount on your south by Southwest innovation badge. That's voxmedia.com hope to see you there. Today. Explain is back. I am Sean Ramis from and Is it just me or is everything politics? Now here's a list off the top of my head. People were looking at who Olympic athletes followed on Instagram to figure out if they voted for Kamala or for Trump. Bad Bunny tried to unify not Just the country, not just the continent, but the hemisphere with this halftime show. But, of course, there needed to be another one for, I don't know, people who still like Kid Rock.
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My name is Kennedy.
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The Kennedy Center, a place for liberals and conservatives and young and old to celebrate the arts, to see movies, to watch operas, is supposedly gonna shut down for two years. For what? For politics.
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And we're gonna make it unbelievable. Far better than it ever was.
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Actors at the Berlin Film Festival who wanted to talk about their movies were instead constantly being asked about politics. And so, as artists, I'm always interested
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in doing things that are apolitical.
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While I don't think I am in the position to really talk about the
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political situation in the U.S. beyonce posts a photo on Instagram with the Puerto Rican flag, and people get mad because she hasn't spoken up about politics, about Palestine. The drummer for my favorite new band, Geese, wins a Brit Award last weekend and makes no such mistake. Instead, he gives a very brief acceptance speech where it seems like he checks off the boxes. Free Palestine.
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Fuck.
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Ice. RIP Manny.
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Let's go, Geese. Thank you.
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Megan Garber. You write about the intersection of culture and politics for the Atlantic. Does everything feel political to you, too?
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It does. It really does. And just listening to that list, I found myself getting stressed out. I felt my heartbeat raising. It really does. I don't think this is new. Politics and culture have always been intertwined with each other, have always been kind of muddled and entangled in ways that kind of belie the politics here, culture, there kind of framing that we usually have. But I think things have become so much more extreme in recent years, and it is hard to think of anything, really, in pop culture that doesn't somehow also political in the end.
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And is it fair to just blame Donald Trump because he seems to just want to be everywhere and have a take on everything and call out everyone?
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I think to some extent, yes. And I think definitely with Hockeygate, if we can call it that, that was definitely, I think, caused by Trump himself in the sense of he is someone who does not recognize the traditional division between culture and politics.
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You're gonna win bigger than ever. And to prove that point, to prove that point, here with us tonight is a group of winners who just made the entire nation proud.
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And he's someone who has a very specific idea of what it means to be presidential, which is very different from what previous presidents often had. And I think also, yes, he likes to be the center of attention and likes to start a scandal, even in situations where One probably did not need to be started. So it is Trump, but it is more than Trump. I think also a lot of the trends that we're seeing right now have to do with basic changes and huge changes in technology.
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Oh, we can blame Donald Trump and technology. Tell me more.
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You know, when you were listing all of these cultural and political events, I was thinking of Marshall McLuhan, the Canadian scholar. Do you know him? Have you.
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You know, I grew up in Canada, so they, like, they beat Marshall into our heads at a young age.
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Love it. Love it. That is a great.
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Yeah.
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So Marshall McLuhan, the scholar who is, I think, most famous for the aphorism, the medium is the message.
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The telephone as a service is a
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huge environment, and that is the medium, and the environment affects everybody.
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What you say on the telephone affects very few.
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Which basically means that, you know, the technologies we use to communicate, the mediums we use to communicate like TV and newspapers and magazines and radio and the like, they're much more than technology. They're much more than machines. They're much more than things we use. They are also things that shape the way we see the world, that shape our information implicitly.
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What you print is nothing compared to the effect of the printed word.
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However much we talk about technology as things that serve us and tools we use, when it comes to the communications technologies, they're on some level using us to. To and, you know, just informing the way that we see the world and thereby shaping the world as they go along.
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Okay, so the medium has changed dramatically in the past few decades. Marshall McLuhan didn't get to see how much it would change with the advent of the Internet. But how has that shaped the message?
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Yes, so McLuhan was writing in the 1960s, so his reference points were television especially, but then also newspapers, magazines, radio, that kind of thing. I think what. Why he is so relevant right now is that so many of his insights apply to the Internet.
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One of the effects of TV is to shorten the amount of time that
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people can pay attention to anything.
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There's a new kind of humor that exists in America called the one liner. We used to have jokes, stories, but no more, only one liners.
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Now, you know, I think of something like social media, for example, and the medium. There is a flow of information, one kind of news feed that puts everything together. That is how most consumers get their news on social media. Just that one kind of flow made of infinite scroll and information that could be personal and about the news of the day and about your puppy that you just got. And so many different things combining into one feedback. And that is the medium. But the message is everything is one, right? Like the divisions that used to exist on, say, newspapers, on tv, where you had kind of news versus opinion as very separate ideas, and you had arts over here and sports over there and international news over there and everything kind of in its place. We no longer have those divisions. We no longer have those categories on social media, on the Internet in general. They really do converge and collapse into each other. And I think that does explain a lot about why culture and politics are themselves collapsing and blending together, because that is. That is the medium kind of having its way with us.
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But as I think you said, culture has always been political. I remember in the 90s, people were mad at Britney Spears for supporting George W. Bush and the Iraq war. Honestly, I think we should just trust
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our president in every decision that he makes and we should just support that.
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What feels like it's changed since then? Is it just that instead of saying, I don't, I don't like Britney Spears anymore, I'm going to change the station. When she comes on the radio, you can just go to her Instagram and call her out directly and embarrass her, maybe in front of all of her legions of fans?
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Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. And one thing about social media is it makes. It turns people into content consumers, but also content producers. And so there's this sort of obligation, or implied obligation, at least not everyone has to do it, but this obligation to share your opinion and to have a take and to always be sort of adding your own content to things and having your own opinion about things. And that, I think is one of the things, core features of social media, that that sort of interplay between. We are like passive consumers of events, of scandals, of culture, of politics, whatever it might be. But we are also active creators of that in some ways, and at least creators of responses to what's happening. So there's always this back and forth between taking it in and putting something out there for other people to consume.
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You know, just to bring this back to where we started on the show today, Megan, with my friend Katrina, trying to feel proud to be an American, trying to embrace Team USA and feel great about their gold, and then immediately having that feeling corrupted by politics. Are we going to get back to a place where we can just share in those big cultural moments and feel unadulterated joy?
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Oh, I hope so. I want to say yes. I mean, I don't see us going back to the situation that was. I don't see us going back to a place where, you know, culture and politics were relatively distinct propositions. But, but, but I also don't think we have to just give in to the trends that exist, right? And, you know, assume that the way things are right now are the way things are going to be. To go back to the technology of it all, historically, when big new mediums have been int, people have had to kind of navigate their way through them and around them and sort of to figure out new boundaries and expectations when it comes to how those mediums will live in the culture and in their lives. And I think that fact alone is very positive and it's an opportunity for us to do that. Navigation and I think especially with social media, we, you know, we are producers as well as consumers, so we do have a of lot, lot of say in, you know, what those standards will be and how we can find joy together.
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That was Megan Garber. She's got a book called Screen How We Entertained Ourselves into a State of Emergency. Check it out if you've been feeling like you're in a state of emergency lately. Miles Bryan made the show. Aminah Al Saadi edited Andrea Lopez Crusado Fact check David Tadashore and Patrick Boyd mixed. I'm Sean Ramasviram. Everyone else is Danielle Hewitt, Hadima Wagdi, Kelly Wesinger, Peter Balin On Rosen, Ariana Aspuru, Dustin Desoto, Jolie Myers, Abhishai Artsy Estad Herndon, our executive producer Miranda Kennedy and our King Noel. We use music by Breakmaster. Cylinder Today Explained is distributed by wnyc. The show is a part of Vox Media Podcast Network. For more podcasts, visit podcasts.voxmedia.com and to listen to our show sans ads, sign up@vox.com members.
Podcast: Today, Explained (Vox)
Hosts: Sean Rameswaram, Noel King
Air Date: March 6, 2026
This episode explores the question of whether it’s possible to enjoy big cultural moments—like Team USA’s men’s hockey gold—without them becoming tainted by politics and controversy. Opening with the saga of the U.S. Olympic hockey win, the hosts trace how rapidly joyous events get politicized, scrutinized, and divided by the broader culture. With input from hockey writer Sean McIndoo and culture critic Megan Garber, the episode examines the collapse of boundaries between entertainment, politics, and social media, asking if, and how, we can reclaim public joy.
Segment Start: 00:00
Sean recounts how even the happiest moments—like Team USA’s dramatic hockey win over Canada—quickly morph into controversy or resentment ([00:24]).
Sean McIndoo (The Athletic) joins to emphasize that hockey rarely gets mainstream attention except at the Olympics, describing this win as a perfect, once-in-a-generation pop culture breakthrough ([02:09]).
“There are the die-hards, and then there are the people who don't pay any attention. [...] The Olympics is such a great opportunity because everybody's watching.”
– Sean McIndoo ([02:09])
Jack Hughes’ golden goal, while a highlight, only granted fans a few minutes of pure elation before outside factors intruded ([03:52]).
Segment Start: 04:33
The celebratory locker room scene turns awkward when FBI Director Kash Patel is seen partying with the team, wearing a gold medal, and “chugging beers” ([05:29]).
Even the presidential congratulatory call to the team becomes contentious, with a joke about also inviting the women’s team to the White House being widely perceived as a slight ([07:10]).
“We’re gonna have to bring the woman’s team. You do not say, absolutely, I do believe I probably would be impeached.”
– President (as quoted/paraphrased, [07:47])
Social media erupts with criticism, noting the women’s hockey team’s vastly superior record (three Olympic golds since 1998, vs. the men’s first in 46 years) ([08:23]).
Segment Start: 08:55
The situation escalates when a clip of Brady Tkachuk, a U.S. player (and NHL captain for Ottawa), is doctored and distributed by the White House to make him appear to insult Canada ([09:55]).
Tkachuk distances himself, but the incident demonstrates the risks of becoming a political prop ([10:19]).
“This is the risk that you run when you allow yourself to become part of this political story, when you allow yourself to become, as some people would describe it, a political prop.”
– Sean McIndoo ([10:57])
Players find themselves fielding more political questions than sports ones, and the sense emerges that “we just can’t have nice things” in today’s climate ([11:15]).
Segment Start: 13:43
Host Sean riffs on other recent examples: athletes’ Instagram followings being interpreted politically, massive halftime shows needing to represent “both sides,” and even the Kennedy Center’s closure announcement being politicized ([15:05–15:24]).
At film festivals and award shows, artists are expected to comment on politics; neutrality is almost impossible ([15:32]).
Social media and the expectation of a “take” or public statement produce continual controversy—even Beyoncé posting a flag photo stirs demands for political pronouncements ([15:35]).
Culture writer Megan Garber observes the unrelenting entanglement of pop culture and politics:
“It really does. I don't think this is new. Politics and culture have always been intertwined [...] but I think things have become so much more extreme in recent years.”
– Megan Garber ([16:16])
Segment Start: 17:02
Megan Garber attributes part of the current environment to Donald Trump’s blending of culture and politics, but also to dramatic technological shifts ([17:02]).
Invoking Marshall McLuhan’s “the medium is the message,” Garber explains how the internet—especially social media—has collapsed distinctions that previously separated news, sports, opinion, and entertainment ([18:14], [19:05]).
"...the mediums we use to communicate, like TV and newspapers and magazines and radio and the like [...] are also things that shape the way we see the world.”
– Megan Garber ([18:40])
Social media’s “infinite scroll” fuses news, opinion, and daily life, creating an environment in which everything is one, erasing boundaries between “apolitical” and “political” arenas ([20:13], [21:13]).
Segment Start: 21:36
Segment Start: 23:07
Sean asks if it’s still possible to share in big cultural moments without their being tainted by politics ([23:07]).
Garber is cautiously optimistic, suggesting each generation must navigate new media and set new norms:
“I don't see us going back to a place where...culture and politics were relatively distinct propositions. But I also don’t think we have to just give in to the trends that exist… We are producers as well as consumers, so we do have a lot of say in...how we can find joy together.”
– Megan Garber ([23:36])
“It was nearly perfect...Not only do we get the gold medal game, but we get three skaters aside in overtime, sudden death...Jack Hughes...he scores, the golden goal...you couldn’t script it any better.”
– Sean McIndoo ([03:36])
“I think, you know, we just can’t have nice things.”
– Sean McIndoo ([11:15])
“The medium is the message.”
– Marshall McLuhan (invoked by Megan Garber, [18:22])
“We are like passive consumers of events, of scandals, of culture, of politics, whatever it might be, but we are also active creators...There’s always this back and forth between taking it in and putting something out there for others.”
– Megan Garber ([22:08])
"To go back to the technology of it all...when big new mediums have been [introduced], people have had to kind of navigate their way through them...I think that fact alone is very positive and it's an opportunity for us to do that navigation."
– Megan Garber ([23:36])
This episode presents a clear, compelling portrait of how political and technological trends have made it nearly impossible to experience shared cultural joy without immediate controversy or division. Both guests agree the boundaries between politics and culture have all but dissolved, but there remains hope for negotiating new norms where collective enjoyment can exist alongside, but not be erased by, our polarized times.
For further insights, check out Megan Garber’s book “Screen: How We Entertained Ourselves into a State of Emergency.”