After the Olympics, a Letter to my Teenage Hockey-Playing Son
Better inclusion means a better party for all of us, just ask Flavor Flav.
To my son (or No. 45 as you are known on the ice):
When the USA men’s hockey team hit the ice for what would become their Olympic win this past weekend, you were putting on your hockey uniform in preparation for a big game of your own. As the world watched two Olympic men’s teams battle it out for gold, I watched you smacking pucks and defending your nets, just as your team in the Special Hockey League always does. The U.S. won. You won. Yet the two victories couldn’t have been more different.
In the aftermath of their Olympic win, the USA men’s team got rowdy, which in hockey, isn’t all that shocking. You’ve seen me cringe or widen my eyes during games when pros slam each other into the boards and start fights with each other. Some of that vibe is sure to spill over into locker rooms, where, if you have just won a gold medal for your country, you do you, I guess.
And yet…
What happened in that locker room will forever cast a shadow over that win, at least as far as I’m concerned. President Trump congratulated the men’s team and told them, over speakerphone (FBI Director Kash Patel's phone, to be precise), that they were all invited to the White House. Then he added, “I must tell you, we're going to have to bring the women's team.” (A team that had just notched its own glorious win, taking the gold against Canada in overtime.) Trump joked that he “probably would be impeached" if he didn't invite the women. The (locker) room erupted in peals of laughter.
Can you guess when the last time the men’s league medaled in the Olympics was? It was 1980. As for the women, they have medaled at every Olympics they’ve participated in since 1998. And somehow the joke’s on them. Like they are the drag on everyone’s fun.
Emma Haslett
What a moment this could have been for the men’s team to show recognition for their female counterparts. But you know that’s not how it went down. Instead, they went along with the joke, chortling at their USA teammates and dismissing the women’s team, because “locker room.” (It’s not the first time we’ve heard the locker-room excuse, I might add.) I wonder if they’d laugh as loud and as hard if they had been reminded that women can expect to earn, on average, between $37,157 and $100,000 annually through the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL), with an earnings cap set at $1.34 million. Meanwhile, the average National Hockey League (NHL) salary as of 2025 is $3.5 million and goes up from there.
What else is missing from the story? Women’s involvement in hockey, not as players, but as hockey moms. We are the bleary-eyed, desperate chuggers of the rink’s badly-burnt coffee sold at inflated prices. We are the chauffeurs. The sharpeners of skates, the sizers of pads. We are the labelers of uniforms; the washers of socks. We stand at the sidelines draped in so many layers we can barely move while the spotlight shines on you. And we are OK with that. Even if we aren’t in the locker room or tying skates, we’re doing our part to make sure everything is in working order for you. Women are there, so you can be there. I’d wager that at least some of those Olympic hockey players had a hockey mom quietly toiling away in the background to fuel their success.
But on your team, dear son, even a loss is a win. This is a deliberate choice because team spirit and joy are key to every aspect of your game, as essential as the air we breathe. Sure it’s about competing, but mostly it’s about playing—for the love of the team, for the love of the sport. Yes, you compete, but every goal is a great goal. Just like every medal is a fantastic accomplishment. It’s too bad the broader sports world hasn’t grasped that—because isn’t that the point?
Is there a silver lining to this gold medal blunder? Why yes, there is and it comes in the form of allyship. After the women’s team (graciously) declined Trump’s invitation to the White House to celebrate their win, the rapper Flavor Flav announced he would throw them a party in Las Vegas. Sponsors including Alaska Airlines signed on immediately to help make a memorable, beautiful celebration fit for these hockey queens. While the USA men’s hockey team was whooping it up in DC and some joined the audience for Trump’s State of the Union address, Flav was doubling down. He took to Instagram and proceeded to invite even more female Olympians and Paralympians to join the party, saying “everybody bring your body to the party.”
In a world full of inequality, I hope you remember to be a Flavor Flav. I hope you’ll raise your voice on behalf of those who need it, not because you want credit for it, but because it’s the right thing to do. And I hope when you do it, it will bring you back to the oxygen, the lifeblood that brought you to hockey in the first place: team spirit and joy.
Love you. Proud of you.
Mom
Author’s Note: My son’s participation in the Special Hockey League is disclosed in this piece with his full consent. 🏒
Tanya Mozias
