hey, auston. welcome back. congrats on the gold. so, just a few quick questions for you here.
as the captain of toronto maple leafs, a historic canadian franchise with the largest fanbase in the nhl, do you have anything to say about your visit to the white house, where you attended the state of the union, an event hosted by the man who has on multiple occasions threatened to annex the country that signs your paycheques? follow up question, do you have anything to say to the dozens of marginalized communities who have been targeted by this administration? do you have anything to say to the families of the victims that ICE has executed? do you have anything to say to the dozens of victims noted in the epstein files, who were also present at this event? also — and this one’s just for fun — why is it that you felt comfortable attending a political event like the state of the union, but have refused to use pride tape two seasons in a row? final question, do you think you embody any of the values of honour, pride, and courage that the team claims to believe in? can you prove it.
so, this post was made several hours before the SOTU, when it seemed very likely that the whole team would be present. however, for the sake of accuracy, based off these images it appears that auston did not attend.
now, does this change my stance? not really, no. because while a handshake-and-photo-op is less explicitly politically charged than the SOTU, the fact that five players didn't attend the white house at all (for whatever reason) and the entire usa women's team didn't attend (we know the reason) means that if he wanted to bow out, he could have. so, the general sentiment of this post still stands.
in fact, that he attended the photo op but not the SOTU makes it feel like he wanted to have his cake and eat it too. he gets to stay on hockey usa's good side and meet the president, while maintaining the thinnest veneer of plausible deniability by not attending an event that would have been a much more obvious endorsement of the current administration's agenda. i still hope that the leafs media core hounds him about this. i hope they ask for an explanation.
and, for what it's worth, most of team usa did attend the SOTU, include brady tkachuk, who is also a captain of a canadian team. so feel free to apply the SOTU-specific parts of this post to them instead!
