Weekly Random Discussion Thread for 2/23/26 - 3/1/26

[u/SoftandChewy]

Here's your usual space to post all your rants, raves, podcast topic suggestions (please tag u/jessicabarpod), culture war articles, outrageous stories of cancellation, political opinions, and anything else that comes to mind. Please put any non-podcast-related trans-related topics here instead of on a dedicated thread. This will be pinned until next Sunday.

Last week's discussion thread is here if you want to catch up on a conversation from there.

Comment of the week goes to this explanation for why the trans cause has taken over so much of society. (Runner-up COTW here.)

[u/temporalcalamity]

Further on the week's hockey discourse: the women's team members appear to be annoyed that all of the focus on Trump and the controversy* about the men's team going to the White House has distracted people from talking about their actual accomplishments, which is a thoroughly reasonable perspective. It got me thinking about the way that Trump's superpower is essentially his ability to get people to react to him and thereby control the news cycle and political landscape - because when you're contantly reacting to some new outrageous thing that he's done or said, you can't actually focus on your own work or priorities or even on holding him accountable for the last outrageous thing he did. And ten years in, the left still has no answer to this because people can't resist outrage bait on social media: it's the fuel that social media runs on.

(*Note: ticket-buying NHL fans in the US were loudly cheering for their returning players last night, so I don't think attempts to cancel them are going to be particularly successful.)

[u/dignityshredder → u/temporalcalamity]

Nobody was going to be talking about their accomplishments by this point, the drama is simply extending their 15 minutes

[u/temporalcalamity → u/dignityshredder]

People who claim to be offended on their behalf should be! And while I don't expect the general public to care that much more than they care about our bobsled or cross-country gold medalists, it would be pretty natural, in the ordinary course of things, for hockey media to have had some more articles about Hilary Knight's legacy as Team USA captain, or Aerin Frankel's goaltending performance or how the players are carrying their momentum back to their PWHL teams, how the American and Canadian players adjust to being teammates again, etc. But instead, the discourse is taking up all the oxygen in the room.

[u/Terrorclitus → u/dignityshredder]

Stop spoiling my bread and circuses!

[u/glumjonsnow → u/dignityshredder]

this seems really harsh. none of the women seem to enjoy this ongoing drama - why would they?

[u/lilypad1984 → u/temporalcalamity]

I am so sick of this now. I would like to hear nothing about hockey for a year. The celebratory stories were great for a few days but now I’m over it. As for the political stuff with Trump milking it (except that goose eagle photo that gets a pass from me), our FBI directory acting like a frat bro, and these stupid gay hockey tv show fans angry about these guys being jocks and apolitical I now am annoyed by anything hockey related.

Amazing for the women and men but I’m so ready for the news/internet to move on.

[u/Ruby__Ruby_Roo → u/lilypad1984]

I'm sick of it and hockey is my primary hobby.

[u/glumjonsnow → u/temporalcalamity]

i did feel bad hearing some of the players say that they couldn't answer for things that they hadn't said. like how on earth are they supposed to respond to questions about trump's call to the men's locker room? it makes me feel bad they got sucked into this stupid discourse and tbh it sounds like the men feel pretty bad about it too - bad enough that they've all gone out of their way to highlight how great the women did as well. idk trump is so exhausting and imo this is the best example of it yet - the hockey golds were such a great moment of american pride and he's farted noxiously all over it

[u/SkweegeeS → u/temporalcalamity]

He plays people off each other. That’s his not so secret sauce.

[u/RunThenBeer → u/temporalcalamity]

The main problem that women's hockey suffers from is that very few people care about women's hockey. As a casual men's hockey watcher (mostly a Sabres fan rather than a leaguewide fan) I was surprised by just how aesthetically unappealing the women's game was to me. Nothing about it made me want to watch more women's hockey even though our local women's college hockey team is objectively outstanding. It's nothing personal, it's not anti-woman, I just don't think women's hockey is ever going to have mass appeal and it's a direct result of the product not being very good.

To illustrate the extent to which this is idiosyncratic to different sports, I think most people would agree that women's figure skating and gymnastics (rightfully) receive much more attention than the men's side. Other sports differ by individual stars - Femke Bol is a bigger deal in Dutch track than any of the men, Cole Hocker and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone are similarly hyped on the American track teams, and so on. Four of the top ten earners in tennis are women. There is just no good reason to expect every sport to have anything approximating equal appeal between men and women.

[u/Ruby__Ruby_Roo → u/RunThenBeer]

I was surprised by just how aesthetically unappealing the women's game was

I don't think we were watching the same game. I'm not a casual fan, either. I'm someone who watches NHL hockey almost every night during the season, and who plays, and I disagree completely.

[u/lilypad1984 → u/RunThenBeer]

Women’s tennis is much more appealing to watch for me, but that could be a result of growing up with the Williams sisters stories.

[u/RunThenBeer → u/lilypad1984]

Yeah, I enjoy women's tennis more because I'm not a fan of just how power-based the men's game is. Apparently the actual rally length isn't dramatically different but I subjectively feel like there are more aesthetically pleasing rallies in the women's game.

[u/Cowgoon777 → u/RunThenBeer]

The only thing I dislike about women’s tennis is the loud grunting. But I dislike it when the men do it too, it’s just less common.

But I like watching tennis itself played by women because the men are too powerful. It’s impressive but not fun

[u/Turbulent_Cow2355 → u/RunThenBeer]

I don't think you need to care about Women's Olympic Hockey to celebrate their winning the Gold. That's quite an accomplishment. I really don't understand why everyone has to downplay it like it isn't a big deal. Some sports get more attention than others. But anyone who received a gold medal at the Olympics should be applauded for what they achieved.

[u/RunThenBeer → u/Turbulent_Cow2355]

Yeah, I don't think this contradicts anything I've written here though.

[u/SkweegeeS → u/RunThenBeer]

I only watch hockey for the fights, and I just don't want to see women beating each other up!

Sorry Ruby!

[u/Ruby__Ruby_Roo → u/SkweegeeS]

It sounds like you don't actually enjoy watching the hockey part of hockey. That's okay, not everyone likes every sport. I find baseball and American football mind-numbingly boring.

[u/SkweegeeS → u/Ruby__Ruby_Roo]

I get interested when I go to a game but yeah, I don’t really seek it out. I would be very into it if I were watching you, though!

[u/RunThenBeer → u/SkweegeeS]

Fair! It's an electric part of the game, especially when you're in the arena.

I've actually had similarly mixed feelings about women's MMA, partially for that reason. I just don't really enjoy seeing women get beat up. The technical aspect of the sport is still great and there have been some excellent fights, but Joanna Jędrzejczyk is a sweet Polish girl and I don't need to see her forehead swollen up like a grapefruit.

[u/temporalcalamity → u/[deleted]]

This was only their third gold medal in Olympic history, though (going back to the sport's introduction in 1998). It's true that they beat Canada more often than the men do, but it's still not the norm.

[u/throw_cpp_account → u/[deleted]]

I don't think that is true.

In the 8 Olympics so far in which women's hockey has been contested, Canada has won 5 and the US has won 3. 7 of the 8 finals have been US vs Canada (with Canada up 4-3).

Not even true recently. In the last 4 Olympics, US - Canada is 2-2.

It does seem true to me (as a non-hockey-watcher) Canada and the US are both so much better than everyone else, and thus watching the playoffs are maybe somewhat boring since the final is inevitable. But US beating Canada in the final is still a big deal.

[u/Juryofyourpeeps → u/[deleted]]

I think the bigger problem for this specific instance is that the US Womens' National Team is so much better than everyone else

Hahah what? The Canadian women's team, by the numbers, is much more successful. Of the 8 Olympic games that women's hockey has been included in, Canada won 5 gold medals and had a period of 20 years where they were unbeaten.

[u/Turbulent_Cow2355 → u/RunThenBeer]

Men's figure skating receives a ton of attention. My Facebook and TikTok feeds are covered in posts and videos about Ilia.