Can we enjoy anything anymore?
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What sparked the joy of Team USA's gold medal win in hockey?
A couple of Sundays ago, I joined millions of people around the world to watch Team USA face off against Team Canada for the gold medal in men's hockey. Not gonna lie, I wanted Team Canada to win, and as you surely have heard by now, they didn't, so rough day for me, but a great day for so many friends of mine. One of them, my pal Katrina, texted our group Sunday night. You should have seen me weeping tears of joy this morning. I texted back, I wept the other kind. But over the course of the following few days, Katrina had buyer's remorse. The joy faded and was replaced by a different feeling altogether. On Tuesday night, she texted again.
How did the initial excitement of victory fade for fans?
Sean, if it makes you feel any better, basically every single last drop of joy that I received from the men winning the gold has pretty much been eradicated.
On Today Explained from Vox, can we enjoy anything anymore?
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Chances are your favorite websites used to depend on Google for traffic and money. But that's not really working anymore. Now publishers are scrambling for new lifelines. Neil Vogel, who runs People Inc., says his company figured it out a couple years ago. You would think, given what everyone said about us, that we would be the guys that would be doing the worst now. We're kind of the guys doing the best now. I'm Peter Kafka, the host of Channels, the show about tech and media and what happens when they collide. You can hear my conversation with Neil Vogel now, wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.
Let's start with the hockey of it all. Here's Sean McIndoo. He's a hockey guy at The Athletic.
The joke in hockey is that there is no, no sports fan has hockey as their second favorite sport. There are the diehards. And then there are the people who don't pay any attention. They don't care. They don't get it. And that has always been a problem for the sport. How do we get more eyes on this product? How do we break out of just being a product that is loved by the diehard fans and sort of break into the mainstream, into the pop culture world and what have you? And that's why the Olympics is such a great opportunity because you When the Winter Olympics comes along, everybody's watching. Every sports fan, even people who don't watch sports, get involved in the Olympics. And hockey is one of, if not the marquee events of that.
And on top of that, you look at what's happening in the culture with heated rivalry. This show that comes out of nowhere about hockey, among other things.
What are you doing? I think you know.
becomes this popular pop culture phenomenon. And so if you can get, especially Canada versus USA in a gold medal game, this classic rivalry, what a wonderful opportunity. Everything is suddenly set up perfectly for hockey to have its breakthrough moment that it's been chasing for decades.
And a spoiler if you haven't gotten to your, you know, pre-recorded Olympic highlights yet or whatever, but they did it.
They did it. It was nearly perfect. We all want to see Canada versus the USA in the gold medal game. And not only do we get the gold medal game, but we get... Three skaters aside in overtime, sudden death. Sudden death overtime. And we get Jack Hughes, a former first overall pick, who had been high-sticked in the face late in the third period. He's missing teeth. There is blood dripping from his mouth, and he scores. this immortal goal that immediately goes to the top of great American hockey moments, great American sports moments. And he's smiling and he's got the flag wrapped around his shoulders with the missing teeth and this great photo.
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