The New York Times Makes Sports Miserable
People love sports because it's an escape, which is why we don't force athletes to choose sides
During Donald Trump’s lengthy State of the Union address last night, the New York Times had a team of reporters doing live commentary, hunting errors. Someone has to do it, since the president’s been known to drop whoppers, but “Rubio was looking at his phone after Trump praised him?” Anton Troianovski saying there are “similarities” to speeches by Vladimir Putin because this State of the Union (unlike others?) saw the “ruling elite bathe the president in applause?”
Then there was this all-time fact-check:
Writer Julian Barnes conceded he was half-kidding with his “pedantic” correction. Still:
Mr. Trump is probably correct that he has never seen a goaltending performance like Mr. Hellebuyck’s. Sportswriters praised the amazing game he played. However, the Canadian team had 42 shots on goal, and Mr. Hellebuyck stopped 41.
An amazing performance, but only 41, rather than 46, shots stopped.
Trump is probably correct to say “I’ve never seen a goaltender play as well” because “sportswriters praised” Hellebuyck’s “amazing” game? What if “sportswriters” hadn’t praised it? It’s true Trump oversold the “shots on goal” Hellebuyck faced, but if you want to accurately be a dick about things, that’s the number Barnes should have corrected, not Hellebuyck’s saves. There’s petty, then there’s juking hockey stats during a presidential speech.
Not unlike the original Miracle on Ice team, which provided an oasis of good news at a time when Americans were so bummed out that Jimmy Carter had to concede the fact in a historically depressing speech, the U.S. hockey team last weekend provided a thrilling respite for a divided country.
Social media complaints however, started before Hellebuyck’s standout performance and Jack Hughes’ golden goal. Haters sounded off about “sportsball” as an outpost of toxic masculinity that exists to pacify the masses before the puck even dropped, but things went to a new level after the game. That’s when word got out that USA players a) swilled beers with FBI director Kash Patel, b) took a call from Donald Trump, and c) laughed when Trump said, “I must tell you, we’re going to have to bring the women’s team,” adding he’d probably be impeached if he didn’t.
It was too much for the Times and its sports site The Athletic, which quickly tossed off a hit piece: “The U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team won gold — and then lost the room.” As a textbook exercise in how to take fun out of life, the article was a masterpiece, borrowing the language of a Yale political science class to surgically remove the buzz of a great hockey game:
