Hockey Country, U.S.A.
Just a good time with the boys
The Canadians had more talent. They dominated the second and third period. They had the best line in hockey on the ice in Overtime. And in the end, it didn’t matter.
They stayed in the Olympic Village, this American men’s Olympic hockey team that won a classic 2-1 overtime thriller against Canada on Sunday afternoon, in a game that—bet on it—will be dissected and feted and reminisced about, quite wistfully, a quarter century from now. Maybe even sooner. The squad swore off the Four Seasons to live like everyday Olympians for a few weeks. The Hughes brothers, Jack and Quinn, and the Tkachuks, Matthew and Brady, each shared rooms with their siblings: Quinn mock-complained about the Tkachuks always leaving their door open across the hall.
“Olympic spirit, team chemistry, there’s something to that,” says American forward Dylan Larkin, who plays for the Detroit Red Wings. “We’re Team USA, and we get to hang and talk to figure skaters and speed skaters. Winning gold is contagious. And being around winners, being around great athletes, was something that I’m very appreciative we did.”
They honored Johnny Gaudreau, the late Columbus Blue Jackets forward who, as a seven-time All Star, almost certainly would have been on this team, had he and his brother, Matt, a minor league player who starred at Boston College, hadn’t been tragically killed in the summer of 2024; a suspected drunk driver stuck their bikes on the eve of their sister’s wedding. Larkin and Zach Werenski, Gaudreau’s teammate with Columbus, brought Johnny Gaudreau’s children onto the ice after Jack Hughes’ golden goal gave the U.S. its first Olympic gold medal since the Miracle On Ice in 1980.
Werenski and Matthew Tkachuk held up a #13 Gaudreau Team USA jersey during a team victory photo. Canada had 42 shots on goal, to the U.S.’s 28; the dexterity of the best player in the rink, Connor Hellebuyck, in goal—he had 41 saves—and some good fortune allowed the U.S. to escape with a win. “I think part of the puck not going in our net was somehow [Johnny] is standing there doing something,” says Larkin. “Laughing with Matty. Just somehow, they put a spell around our net where that puck didn’t go in. Ironic, because it’s on the defensive side. He would never have been back there.”
And they had Jack Hughes, the New Jersey Devils forward, who had a day. Hughes lost his teeth on the ice from high-stick to the mouth, put the Americans in a dangerous spot at the end of the third period when he got penalized for high-sticking, but then delivered the game–winner a few minutes into overtime. “The difference between a guy that wants the puck on a stick in that moment, if you watch the video, I turn and go back,” says Larkin, who shared the ice with Hughes during the game-winner, and indeed skated away from the action. “He wants it. And he f-cking put it in the net. That’s what superstar players do.”
And for a few hours on a Sunday morning at least, on a February day without the NFL or the NBA All-Star Game or the Daytona 500, this likeable group of American hockey players riveted a nation, and maybe even united the country. “The team was built with personality,” said Team USA coach Mike Sullivan. “We were loaded with personality. There are whiskey drinkers and milk drinkers. We have a lot of whiskey drinkers on this team.” A gap-toothed Jack Hughes, brother Quinn, and American captain Auston Matthews soon joined Sullivan on the press conference stage. They were wearing drinking goggles and sucked down Coronas.
More from The Free Beacon: So Proud to Be American
Mexico Descends into Cartel Chaos
Following the killing of El Mencho. The Wall Street Journal:
Mexico’s military killed the country’s most powerful drug kingpin, Nemesio “Mencho” Oseguera, escalating the government’s war against cartels amid pressure from President Trump to curb narcotics trafficking and sparking a widespread, violent gang response.
Oseguera, a former Mexican police officer, was the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. The cartel also controls vast fuel-smuggling schemes and other underworld rackets across Mexico and the U.S., Mexican authorities said.
Oseguera’s killing marks the most significant operation yet in Mexico’s recent crackdown on cartels. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has expelled more than 100 convicted drug traffickers to the U.S. to appease rising demands from Trump, who has pressured Sheinbaum to allow U.S. military forces in the fight against drug gangs. So far she has rejected direct U.S. involvement but has strengthened security and intelligence cooperation.
Mexico’s Security Ministry said the country’s special forces killed Oseguera in the rural municipality of Tapalpa—close to Ajijic, a lakeshore community with a large American retiree community.
The ministry said the country’s central military-intelligence unit planned and executed the operation with Mexico’s armed forces, including the country’s air force and an elite national-guard unit trained to fight cartels. U.S. authorities provided “supplementary information.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Oseguera was a top target for the Mexican and U.S. governments. Last year, Trump designated the Jalisco cartel as a foreign terrorist organization, she wrote on X.
Oseguera controlled vast swaths of territory in Jalisco state and beyond and was known for sophisticated paramilitary tactics. He had been expanding his influence and was locked in a bloody struggle for control of neighboring Michoacán state.
The U.S. had a $15 million bounty on Oseguera. He rarely left his mountain compound, according to authorities. Few photos of him circulate. The cadre of men protecting Oseguera, known as the Special Force of the High Command, carry heat-seeking, shoulder-fired rocket launchers capable of piercing a tank, people familiar with cartel operations said.
U.S. and Mexican law enforcement saw capturing Oseguera as a high-risk operation because of his military might and the risks of widespread violence. With this strike, Mexico had provided a “scalp to the U.S., putting off the threat of unilateral U.S. military action against the cartels,” said Mike Burgoyne, a former U.S. military attaché in Mexico City.
The Security Ministry said special forces were attacked during the raid. “They returned fire,” the ministry said.
Four cartel members were killed at the scene, while three others, including Oseguera, died from their wounds during air transport to Mexico City.
“That is a high-level special operation,” said Derek Maltz, former head of the Drug Enforcement Administration. He compared Sunday’s events to the U.S. raid that captured Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro in January.
“You’re going after the top cartel leader who has been running wild for many years, and that requires intense planning, coordination and operational implementation,” Maltz said.
Oseguera, who grew up poor selling avocados, became the top trafficker of cocaine globally, say U.S. and Mexican authorities, eclipsing the better-known Sinaloa cartel’s dominant position in recent years. Oseguera’s cartel transports the addictive powder by the ton from Colombia to Ecuador and then north to Mexico’s Pacific Coast via speedboats and semisubmersibles.
Oseguera’s gunmen responded to his death by burning cars and trucks and blocking roads in Guadalajara, Mexico’s second-largest city, as the government deployed security forces across western Mexico.
In the Pacific beach resort of Puerto Vallarta, videos showed black plumes of smoke wafting over the city. Professional soccer matches were postponed in Jalisco. Several Mexican, U.S. and Canadian airlines canceled flights to airports in Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta.
Security forces launched a massive operation to capture Mexico’s top drug lord after U.S. and Mexican intelligence agencies tracked one of his girlfriends to a secluded love nest in a colonial town, Mexican officials said Monday.
Early on Sunday, a team of elite Mexican army and National Guard special-operations soldiers descended on the community of Tapalpa in western Mexico, where Nemesio “Mencho” Oseguera, the head of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, remained holed up after his girlfriend left, Mexico’s Defense Secretary Gen. Ricardo Trevilla said on Monday.
The soldiers chased Oseguera and several bodyguards, surrounding them deep into nearby woods, Trevilla said.
A battle ensued, as Oseguera’s desperate bodyguards, armed with two rocket launchers, fired on the pursuing troops. In the fighting, eight people were killed, including Oseguera and two other bodyguards who were seriously wounded and then died in a military helicopter later.
Trevilla said Mexican intelligence services identified a man close to Oseguera’s lover who took her to Tapalpa, a mountain weekend getaway community surrounded by pine forests in western Jalisco state. Mexican officials said U.S. intelligence helped the operation.
“The intelligence process is very complex; it requires a great deal of time to gather a lot of information from diverse national and international sources,” Trevilla said with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum standing alongside him.
More than 50 people died in the aftermath of the raid during the gang’s counteroffensive. The dead included 25 Mexican soldiers and security officers and 30 alleged gunmen. There were also civilians caught in the crossfire, including a pregnant woman, authorities said.
Overcome with emotion, Trevilla paused as he lauded the soldiers who died on Sunday.
“We have strengthened our relationship with the U.S. Northern Command,” Trevilla said.
Sheinbaum said that she was notified of the operation early on Sunday. She instructed the setup of a central command.
The U.S. had a $15 million bounty on Oseguera.
Authorities seized heavy weapons and ammunition, two rocket launchers and eight vehicles used by Oseguera’s operatives; some of them were armored.
U.S. officials said that the U.S. Joint Interagency Task Force-Counter Cartel, a newly established U.S. military-led unit created to dismantle drug-cartel networks, helped with the mission.
Sheinbaum said that there were no U.S. boots on the ground. She reiterated on Monday that she has rejected direct U.S. involvement, but her administration has strengthened security and intelligence cooperation.
“All operations, from their planning onwards, are the responsibility of the Mexican federal forces,” Sheinbaum said. Two soldiers were injured during the raid.
A top financial operator for Oseguera was also killed in a gunfight at a nearby town as he attempted to flee in a car Sunday. The cartel operative was offering rewards of 20,000 pesos, equivalent to almost $1,200, for the death of any Mexican soldier involved in the operation, Trevilla said.
More:
The Wall Street Journal: Gunmen Wreak Havoc in Coastal Resort Towns
New York Post: Deadly Violence in Mexico Spreads After Cartel Boss Killed as Americans Warned to Shelter in Place
✍️ Feature
🌍 Foreign
Brussels Signal: U.S. Diplomatic Decline and the Lost European Mind
MSN: Iranian Protesters Recount the War Zone That Left Thousands Dead
Al Jazeera: U.S. Military Begins Withdrawing From Key Base in Northeastern Syria
The Telegraph: Greenland Rejects Trump’s Hospital Ship Offer
Washington Examiner: Kim Jong Un Reelected as Daughter Takes Prominent Role
The Wall Street Journal: Police Arrest Britain’s Former Ambassador to the U.S. Over Epstein Links
The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Elite Troops, Hardened by War on Terror, Retrain for Arctic Combat
The National Interest: Trump and a Chagos Islands Intervention With the U.K.
🏛️ Domestic
Axios: House Democrats Plot 2026 Targets With Trump in the Background
Politico: The Maine Senate Race and the Rise of Graham Platner
Politico: Democratic Attorneys General Accuse Trump of Election Meddling Ahead of the Midterms
The Telegraph: Secret Service Shoots Dead Man Attempting to Enter Mar-a-Lago
Washington Examiner: Rep. Tony Gonzales Under Investigation After Alleged Affair With Staffer Who Later Died by Suicide
Mediaite: Zohran Mamdani Mocked for Requiring Five Forms of ID to Be an Emergency Snow Shoveler
🗳️ 2028
New York Post: Gavin Newsom Goes Viral After Telling Black Mayor “I Am Like You” then Citing SAT Score
Axios: The DNC’s 2024 Autopsy and the Fallout Over Harris and Gaza
Axios: Vance and Rubio Face the 2028 Question as Trump Looms
📰 Media
💻 Tech
🧬 Health
✝️ Religion
🏈 Sports
The Wall Street Journal: Liu, Klaebo, Shiffrin and the Stars of the Milan-Cortina Olympics
The Athletic: The Best Gold Medal Moments in Winter Olympics History
The Cut: The U.S. Men’s Hockey Team, Kash Patel and a Trump Phone Call
🎭 Culture & Hollywood
The Hollywood Reporter: ‘Reading Rainbow’ Reboot in the Works as Sony Strikes Deal With PBS
The Hollywood Reporter: Tourette’s, the BAFTAs and the BBC in ‘Sinners’ Awards Night Controversy
🪶 Quote
“I can claim copyright only in myself, and occasionally in those who are either dead or have written about the same events, or who have a decent expectation of anonymity, or who are such appalling public shits that they have forfeited their right to bitch.”
— Christopher Hitchens