Should Canadian Women's Hockey team be banned from Closing Ceremonies?

Let’s amputate their feet at the ankles, too. Jeez, give a kid a break.

Oh Canadians, typical. (I am one :P )

No, I don’t think so. If anything, invited – to turn up the heat!

Who cares?

What? Are you bitter because we lost?

Absolutely not. This is a group of women who have spent years practicing for just this one event, and all that hard work and determination payed off with a gold medal at the Olympics. You’d ban them from closing ceremonies for a momentary lapse in judgment during a celebration? That’s unnecessarily cruel.

Like @dpworkin said, give the ladies a f*ckin’ (I’ll add that) break! The girls played their asses off. Let them have a little fun!!!

I love my Canuck women’s team!!!

No.

@simone54 I don’t necessarily care and I’m not bitter because Team USA lost. As a matter of fact I agree with @jeffgoldblumsprivatefacilities insight. . . They should not be denied their glory for all the effort and hard work they put into their craft to win the gold.

Also, celebrating with Molsen Canadian (beer) is the only way to go!...(my Canadian beer of preference)

Of course not. What’s the big deal?

Americans don’t want to win the gold this way.

The Canadians earned the victory. Sanction them with a fine if they must be sanctioned but taking away their medals or not allowing them in the closing ceremony would be an outrage.

The Canadian women won Olympic gold in their national sport in their own country. Cut ‘em a fucking break IOC!

I mentioned the medals specifically becase the IOC can take away medals for very minor things.

Leave them alone! Sheesh. As @Captain_Fantasy, fine them or something, but do NOT take away what they earned fair and square. It would be a hollow, meaningless victory for Americans.

I hope this question is sour grapes because the USA team was again defeated by a superior Canadian Women’s team!

While the celebration might have gone on in the wrong place for a few people’s taste or may have been too lively for the supporters of other teams, a team winning their third consecutive Gold medal has justification to celebrate an extraordinary accomplishment.

The IOC and the IIHF are more conservative than most people in general, this over-celebration using the Olympic Venue as a backdrop is hardly so heinous to justify banning Gold medallists from the closing ceremonies.

Had they paraded naked performing lewd sexual acts while flogging members of the public with sharpened hockey sticks, such censure would be called for!

You try and accomplish winning three international world championships in a row in any challenging competitive event and then try and celebrate calmly and sedately so no person could possibly complain. Then talk to me about sanctioning hard working athletes who do this with minimal financial support after 12 years or more of training!

I don’t get @simone54‘s response….

This whole Winter Olympics has been turned into a fiasco by the newsmedia. I am not particularly a sportsfan or follower of Olympic events; but every time I sit down at my PC or turn on my TV there’s another ridiculous “scandal” story. This one, re the Canadian Women’s Hockey Team caught my eye (the intent of the media, termed “yellow journalism”/sensationalism or agenda-setting in first-year college journalism courses) so I foolishly opened the link and read the details. What nonsense! To make an issue out of these wonderful athletes’ harmless celebration with cigars and a beer (I thought it was so cute, seeing them) reinforces my disgust with the entire mass media structure, and what it has become. I, for one, am so sick of the goings-on, the “exposes” etc. I have drawn a line in the sand: If the Olympic committee, or whatever you call it, chastises these athletes in any way for their harmless, well-deserved celebration, I will never again watch a single moment of the Olympics. Don’t we have enough of this crap to deal with in the political sector…or is this too simply another arena for the pol trolls?

Uh…is it my imagination or are some people attacking the OP?

@Dilettante

Agreed. It’s not about a serious infraction that people think is damaging and deserves long-term punishment, it’s about sensationalism and drawing attention with “scandal” after “scandal”.

Next thing we’re going to hear some Olympic medalist cheated on his girlfriend back in high school and he’s going to be banned from the rest of the games…anything to make a story.

I would hope that if they are stripped of their medals, the US team would decline to accept them.

@MissAusten Nice thought…..

I really don’t understand some of the answers here.

The question never mentioned anything about taking their medals away. (that would be ridiculous in my opinion) Did I miss something? Are they contemplating taking the medals?
@njnyjobs didn’t seem to be insinuating that the Canadian women should be banned from the closing ceremonies.
The IOC seems to be the only one suggesting that possibility. (I don’t think that they should have to miss the closing ceremony)

@Dr_Lawrence said “I hope this question is sour grapes because the USA team was again defeated by a superior Canadian Women’s team!”
Why would you hope that the question was sour grapes on someones part? It didn’t seem like sour grapes to me, just a question about something going on at the Olympics.
The Canadian women won the gold medal, because they played a better game and beat The American women. They deserve their gold medals. I didn’t see anyone acting bitter or like “sour grapes”.
I didn’t mind the celebrating at all. (I am an American woman) I thought is was nice and well deserved.
The only problem that I can see would be if the underage gals would get in some kind of civil trouble for the drinking. I really hope they don’t.

clearly, it’s the American team who should be banned from the closing ceremonies.
if the American team didn’t suck so much none of this would’ve happened.

@ninjacolin I thought that the American team played well. The Canadian team played better, though (and I do think that they are the better team).

Undeage drinking is a very minor but legal infraction, but it had NOTHING to do with “cheating” the game or winning unfairly so it has nothing at all to do with anything olympic authorities should punish or deal with. The local law enforcement could however write the girls a little ticket if there is proof of breaking a law. I hope they don’t. I know many kids who paid their little tickets, went to their court dates, dealt with the minor infraction as everyone does, and went on to live a normal life. In other words, if anyone does punish the girls, and I hope nobody does, it should be in the typical way any other kid is punished. The normal ticket and underage drinking procedure given to all kids, everybody’s kids, according to how things are handled there. Probably would just be a warning or a ticket or something. No biggie. I hope nobody does anything though. I’m one that thinks the legal drinking age should be 18. Just saying this had nothing to do with the game. Taking drugs to enhance performance or doing something to cheat would affect the game. An after game celebration does not affect the game. Not the business of the olympics to handle it IMO.Not their jurisdiction or business at all. I don’t think the OP was advocating any particular stance. It’s a simple question. The answer is “NO”.

What? For drinkin’ and smokin’? Come on!

i was kidding, jjmah!

They won the gold medal, let them have a little R&R. It’s not like they are hurting anyone.

This
http://bradcran.com/vancouver_verse/on-women%E2%80%99s-gold-equality-and-the-ioc/
enough said

First the IOC should check those cigars thoroughly for Canola oil ganja. Then they should confiscate their beers, chill them and drink them.

Wait, we’re surprised that the IOC takes action against athletes for not behaving up to Olympic standards? Did everyone forget Scott Lago?

Of course they’re going to keep their medals, stripping them is ridiculous. But sending those home for breaking the law? I’m not surprised. I wouldn’t support it, but I’m not at all surprised.

This story is much more about the demise of privacy in modern cuture than anything else, though.

@andrew I don’t follow the games closely and no, I don’t remember hearing anything about this before. I read the story and was appalled. In that instance nobody was doing anything wrong at all. And I mean, at ALL. Why in the world would that be disciplined? It isn’t against any laws or rules I know about. That is disturbing.

Old fogeys, I’m shocked by the Scott Lago story as well. I say go girls. If mussing up a little legality like underaged beer is knotting up their panties, it’s time for the IOC to retire.

And same goes for Mark Phelps taking a little bong hit, too!

But alcoholic beverage advertising during sporting events in television and radio is OK? I recall Marlboro cigarettes advertising on racing automobiles many years far into the 1990’s, like this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marlboro_(cigarette)

I saw an American bronze medal guy having a girl give fellatio to his bronze medal. That was a whole lot worse than what I saw the Canadian women doing.

If there is proof that they broke the law then yes, they should be punished accordingly, and not get away with it just because they are stars.

But there is no law that says you’ll be banned from the closing ceremony of the olympics for drinking. Similarly, there’s no law that says you’d be banned for unpaid parking tickets, cheating on your boyfriend, not doing your homework or watching too much TV.

They should participate in the sports event as athletes. Anything else is irrelevant.

Fact from fiction truth from fricken diction! Why in the hell for!? Because they acted too American? Most of them probably got boinked when they were between 12 and 15 and I bet the legal age there is 16 at least. And how many times have you heard some underage drinking fool here killing themselves by consuming too much alcohol and there was not even a gold medal involved. The press just didn’t have a good doping story to follow that night, or it was Fox news on hand.

_….(If fellatio is illegal I need a lawyer quick.) _

Seriously? They just won the freaking gold medal. As long as they’re in a mostly private setting and not hurting someone else, they can do pretty much do whatever they feel like. Tell the media and the IOC to stuff it up their a**.

The most despicable thing of all is that the money-grubbing media swine deliberately made it look like they did this in front of the fans. Then, when you read the whole thing, you ferret out the fact that the place was EMPTY!! Only some money-hungry journalist/paparazzi were hanging around to see who they could take advantage of to make a buck. Unbelievable! NO ONE saw these women, except the media scumbags, who now made it an issue for all the world to see, be tricked into believing these fine athletes did this knowingly, in front of the cameras, fans….I just had a thought…they probably didn’t even know they were being filmed. Can there be action taken against the MEDIA for invasion of privacy? Concerned American Citizen.
Ps. All these “scandals” go against the very heart of what the Olympics are supposed to represent, sportsmanship, fairness, teamwork, universal understanding, cooperation. The media has made a mockery of what the Olympics are supposed to be.

@Dilettante Great answer. I was going to tell the media and IOC to take a flying fu** at a rolling donut, but I couldn’t remember how to spell donut.

@Adirondackwannabe I prefer to use my Dad’s catch-all favorite:

“F**K them, and the horse they rode in on.”

But he like the donut one too.

That’s another one of my favs.

@Adirondackwannabe @Dilettante Was it really in private, though? On the ice of the rink? Really?

And it’s not like anything is private anymore—in the case of Scott Lago, that media “asshole” was definitely some teenager looking for a quick buck who sent their camera picture to TMZ.

@Captain_Fantasy And he was sent home, see my response above.

Trying ”@andrew” the dam thing isn’t working. The arena, the stadium, was EMPTY. The camera angles deliberately fail to show this. The celebration, begun in the changing rooms, as a result of their deserved exuberance, briefly spilled out onto into the now-EMPTY arena.

@Wilma I meant is NOT a case of sour grapes. Oops!

@Dr_Lawrence Ah well that makes more sense! :)