The State of the Union was a zoo – and Team USA the monkeys

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It was only as they filed into the chamber inside Washington’s Capitol building on Tuesday night – surrounded by hooting politicians – that it seemed to occur to Team USA what they had gotten themselves into.

This was a zoo. They were the monkeys.

In fairness, that is kind of what they do for a living, but that’s on their own terms, and for money. They are the stars of that show. On Tuesday, they were props for the actual star and got nothing for it but grief.

The ones headed back to Canadian teams – Winnipeg’s Connor Hellebuyck and Toronto’s Auston Matthews, in particular – will never live it down.

U.S. men’s hockey team feted at Trump’s State of the Union address

Matthews made things worse by showing up at the White House during the day, but skipping the State of the Union address at night. It shows that he got how it looked, and tried to finesse his way through it. Sadly for many NHLers, they don’t teach finessing in high school.

If you watch the video carefully – around the time the players are being encouraged to pump their fists and chant ‘U-S-A’ – you can see recognition dawning on a few faces. That whatever this is, it is not aggrandizing.

It was a terrible idea. The whole thing. They could’ve just gone to a night club for three days and had everyone’s phone confiscated at the door, but ooohhhh no, someone had to get ambitious.

Ambition is at the core of this. In American pro terms, hockey is a third-class endeavour. This was Team USA’s big chance to move to the front of the culture. They weren’t ready for it.

I think it was the sweaters. Going around in public dressed up like an early middle-aged glee club is not very Michael Jordan. It was the sweaters, with a side of sycophancy.

The USA players could have played this straight down the middle. Been modest and self-effacing after their victory. Kept the politics to one side.

But where’s the fun in that? How do you mine aura out of humility?

They could not risk going in too hard on Canada. They all play with Canadians, many of whom have more juice than they do at work. No one who takes shots at Sidney Crosby is going to survive long in today’s NHL.

U.S. women’s ice hockey team decline invite to Trump’s State of the Union address

Evidently, their big idea was to lean hard into the red, white and blue. Instead of sticking it to Canada, they’d stick it to the Libs. For 72 hours, it would be frat house rules.

That’s how you end up beer bongin’ with the director of the FBI and going into hysterics when the President invites you over to his place.

Some people were appalled. ‘Twenty-something professional hockey players? Drawn to power? Unaware of the troubles of their fellow citizens?’

To which I would say, are you serious? What do you think these people talk about when they’re alone? Book clubbing The Wretched of the Earth?

They talk about sea-doos, watches and stick tape. A lot of them went to college, but none of them actually went to college. They went to hockey. I’d be shocked if more than a handful of them had ever read a book that wasn’t Harry Potter.

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Try to remember that these men were not raised to be independent thinkers. That would be antithetical to getting where they’ve gotten. They are designed from childhood to live in packs.

Whenever a new alpha – like the current U.S. President – wanders into their midst, even telephonically, their instinct is to roll over and start chittering.

Hence, the idiotic guffawing after Trump called them up right after they’d won gold and made a ‘girls have cooties’ joke about the USA women’s team.

If he’d dared them to strip naked and go streaking on the ice, many of them would have done it. That’s what being a hockey player is.

A few U.S. team members are being singled out as heroes for resisting the Trump allure, but those few have different hierarchies to worry about.

Kyle Connor didn’t show up. Maybe he disagrees with current U.S. policy. Maybe he had an engagement party to attend. Maybe he gets that he has to go to work in Manitoba, and isn’t an indispensable superstar like Hellebuyck.

Colorado’s Brock Nelson didn’t go. Maybe it’s the politics. Or maybe he didn’t like the idea of being seen to put himself above his social betters – Avalanche teammates Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar and Devon Toews – all of whom had reported back for duty.

Going to the White House and then being stood up as props for the big show doesn’t make Team USA suddenly bad.

I’m pretty sure most of them didn’t have a serious think about what it meant, and will never do so. To them, it’s viral content and a great picture for the hero wall at home. If the U.S. were to elect a Communist, they’d have shown up to his party, too.

The only political bone in any of their bodies is the tax bone. Why do you think every hockey player loves Florida, but no one wants to go to California? Because they love swamps?

It doesn’t make them bad. Rather, it makes them not particularly smart, or savvy. They were that way before they won anything.

So what have we learned from this nonsense? Only one important thing – that pro athletes aren’t your friends.

With some exceptions, they don’t think like you think. They don’t share your priorities, or views, or understanding of how to be in the world, because they live in a very different one.

If they were to get the unfiltered truth of what a typical pro thinks about how things work, most work-a-day people would probably be somewhere between put off and repulsed.

That doesn’t mean you can’t like the NHL. It means that liking it doesn’t entail kidding yourself that everyone playing in it is a saint and a deep thinker.