IOC Axes Constitution From Hockey Mask

[RicardoZ]

The International Olympic Committee has forced US Women's Ice Hockey team goalie Jessie Vetter to remove an image of the US Constitution from her mask, citing rules against “A sort of 'our country is better than your country' kind of thing..."



Aside from the phrase "We the people..." the small portion of text on the mask is entirely illegible.

I can understand that they want to keep political statements to a minimum on a stage where so many different nations are watching at once, but do three politically innocuous words really constitute an attempt at propaganda? Is this Ms. Vetter's way of trying to tell a Swedish forward, "Hey bitch, socialize THIS!"

I think this will actually backfire on the IOC, in that the removal of the image is actually going to cause a much larger politicization of the event than it ever would have had it been allowed to remain on the mask.

Seeing that our Constitution has recently been used to justify same-sex marriage and provides freedom of speech to punk rockers who want to eviscerate our government in their art, I can understand why it might be a bit threatening to the organizers of the event in a country that is trying to criminalize homosexuality and locks up women who play their guitars too loud.

EDIT: Link to full story http://m.yahoo.com/w/sports/nhl/blog...tl=US&.lang=en

[Laize]

Wait a second.

Women play ice hockey in the Olympics?

Who knew?

[Payday]

Good, the artist butchered it anyways. I'm watching Fox News right now, surprised this isn't their lead.

[Masark]

Ah, goalies. It takes a special kind of person to put aside the logic of self-preservation and throw one's body in front of a hard disk pursued by very large people armed with sticks and low coefficients of friction

[PACOX]

I'm neutral on this one. It is what it is a long others can't do similar things.

[lockedout]

I would argue that isn't the constitution.

[Forgettable]

Seems dumb to me. Although on a side note, my friend is designing the art on the Canadian bobsled team's bobsled!

[RicardoZ]

my friend is designing the art on the Canadian bobsled team's bobsled!

Hey that's pretty cool. Have they already released the design or can you give us a sneak peek?

[tss]

The Olympics are supposed to be purely about the sport... one should respect that and keep their personal politics out of it.

[Sunseeker]

The Olympics are supposed to be purely about the sport... one should respect that and keep their personal politics out of it.

Right...that hasn't happened since pretty much...ever.

Also: more likely got axed since the Winter Olympics are in Russia and the IOC is a bunch of pushovers.