Team? What Team?

Sports fans and commentators can be the most hypocritical people with a voice. Even when the U.S. and Canadian hockey teams were just looking like loser in these Olympics, they were talking on TV questioning whether NHL owners should let their players play in the Olympics anymore. The reason for this line of thinking is that the owners let players play in the Olympics because it would increase interests and thus ticket sales; and if both North American teams had lost, no one would give a damn about buying NHL tickets anymore. This maybe true but it is not for these people to say, after all they are the promoters of traditional masculine ideal—loyalty, teamwork, sacrifice, heterosexuality and the faux rhetoric of war. What is more an example of all these values than going to a faux war for your country? If they were honest, they would admit that they are putting their own interest—their local teams—over that of their country. It is not about the owners. Who care about billionaires who own sport teams for their vanity? If the owners were to pull their players from representing their country, the question, if we were to be upholders of the values sport teaches, should be whether we should have legislation to make national team duties mandatory. They lambasted athletes who beg out of playing in these games for minor injuries. They treated those who would rather not carry the flag at the opening ceremony because their events occur soon afterward. And they sympathize with the owner?! What is next? Bank managers are exempted from all jury and military duties because the banks heavily invested in them by paying for their MBA? What team are they playing for?