Unity, Hockey, 2 for 2

What a phone call can do

It’s OK if you don’t understand sport. I think you can understand that some of us are deeply moved by it. I think you can compare that to something that can stir your feelings, both good and bad.

Those of us who like sport love to have the games summon feelings. We have feelings when people put huge effort forth to overcome an opponent.We have feelings when something unjust happens. We have feelings in victory and in loss.

Sport is most compelling when it is as a team, where our striving is powered by a group identity. When we see individuals unite and become more powerful by agreeing to work together.

And when that collective identity is an identity that we also have — school, city, nation — it is even more compelling.

So, a national team’s group sports are really compelling to watch.

The US Women’s hockey team won gold at the Olympics. It was quite a triumph.

Then, shortly after, the US Men’s hockey team won gold. Also a great triumph, and a great moment of unity.

Unity, for humans is such a source of power but not the easiest thing to pull off. As team players understand, we are best when we each bring our skills and wills to the collective plan.

The unity itself has to be a priority for individuals. Experienced team sport athletes trust in the value of that unity.

Most of the US hockey players are on other teams, competing in the same professional league. They compete against each other. For the Olympics they develop a new team unity. After the Olympics, they go back to their other teams and compete against each other, returning to the other team’s unity.

Opposition also recognizes the value of unity. The team opposite you would much rather that you and your teammates singly attempt to score rather than considering your fellow players. They want you separate.

If they saw you fighting among yourselves on the other sideline, they would consider that an advantage. If they see you supporting each other, encouraging each other, and helping each other, that would have them worried.

There is a man who has been successful over the past few years by working against unity. He feels his own success when people are angry at each other.

The divider does have a team, and one of his team members appeared in the locker room upon the US Men’s Hockey victory. His team member then called this divider and put him on speaker phone.

Speaking into a room that felt unity around team play and national pride, this experienced divider spoke words that drew a line to separate the value of the US Women’s Hockey team and the US Men’s Hockey team.

Whether it was conscious or an instinct, it is his manner. In his words, there is always separation. It makes me sad to think how lonely it might be in a mind that thinks like that.

His dividing words can be effective. In this case, on the speakerphone in the locker room, they churn up bad memories and shared knowledge women hold. Now is a time in history when those feelings are extremely raw. Those are emotions, experience, and knowledge that we want to honor.

In these conditions, those locker room speakerphone words could undermine unity, suggesting that women are less worthy than men. Men who were in an emotional time of celebration after a huge effort are now having to choose the wisest response in a complex situation of power and integrity.

Some of the US Men’s Hockey team yelled out “Two for two” recognizing the twin victories for the US Women’s and Men’s Hockey teams.

Does calling that out, evoking that power of unity, erase the questions of sexism that the dividing language called up?

Not for me, but I can’t speak for the women who were put down in that moment.

What it says is that we are going to keep expanding the team and we are going to keep supporting our teammates. It says that despite the dividing language on the speakerphone in the locker room, along with the mess of the world, we know that loving our teammates makes not just the team better, but us better.

Two for two!