Here’s a thread for talking about it, if that’s your thing.

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That’s one of the reasons the news of nine people dead in an avalanche while back-country skiing in the Tahoe area filled me with dread and sorrow. Such young, vibrant people, their lives snuffed out in an instant – although such deaths are usually not instantaneous. The news reports didn’t tell us some things I’d like to know, such as whether they were all skiing at once, and where the survivors were positioned that allowed them to live, and why the decision was made to go despite avalanche warnings.

There was also a less-publicized death but no less horrible, of an 11-year-old girl in Utah, killed in another avalanche while back-country skiing with her family, and another in Utah of a father who was snowmobiling with his son. In both cases, family members tried to dig out the victims, but didn’t manage to save their lives. One can imagine the frantic desperate efforts, the terrible feelings of failure and grief and perhaps guilt.

Why do people engage in such activities? That’s not hard to imagine: it is beautiful in the mountains in winter, and ski resort areas can be terribly crowded. For a lover of nature, mountains, and outdoor activities in snow, back-country activities have a huge draw. And we all do plenty of other seemingly risky things, such as driving.

Then I learned that there have been many avalanche-related deaths in the Alps this year, and that although the number is high, the numbers are usually high (or what I would consider high):

Though the recent spike in avalanche deaths in Europe is worrying, it is not exceptional – according to European Avalanche Warning Services, 95 have died so far this season, compared to 70 in the whole of 2024-25 and 87 in 2023-24. The 2020-21 season, when 131 died, and 2017-18, when the figure was 147, seem comparable.

The articles I’ve read on the European deaths haven’t broken down the figures for back-country deaths, but my guess is that almost all are of that type. Here’s a video that goes into how and why avalanches occur, and how ski resorts prevent or at least reduce their occurrence. The second video is about the Alps avalanche deaths:

It seems to me that back-country skiing has increased in recent years, and that is the case (the article is from a year ago]:

Backcountry skiing has surged in popularity since the pandemic, but those wishing to leave the relative safety of busy resorts can find themselves at the mercy of an unforgiving wilderness. If something goes wrong — as it often does, with avalanches a constant threat — skiers do not have a first-aid team nearby, and rescue can take hours.

And yet Ennen, from Park City, Utah, says the peaceful isolation found up remote mountains is preferable by far to being stuck in lengthy lines at resorts, and he is willing to embrace risk for a sense of freedom.

“I love being in the mountains and surrounded by nature,” said Ennen, a 45-year-old cardiac anaesthesiologist. “It’s my time for my brain to relax and to decompress from the real world. When you’re skiing in a resort, you’re in a controlled environment but with an uncontrolled group of people.

“The backcountry is the opposite. You’re with a controlled group of people, your team, but in a very uncontrolled environment.”

It’s a decision an increasing number of people have been making. Advances in avalanche-related equipment, such as beacons, have probably helped give a sense of security- perhaps a false one? The Tahoe skiiers were thus equipped. In terms of relative risk, though, I don’t know what the figures are and I’m not sure there are figures for how many people back-country ski these days.

Writing this post made me think of the last verse of this poem by Emily Dickinson, which goes like this:

This is the Hour of Lead –
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –
First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –

RIP.

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And there the resemblance ends. The women declined; the men accepted.

The women said “no” very politely, by the way, taking care not to mention politics:

“We are sincerely grateful for the invitation extended to our gold medal-winning U.S. Women’s Hockey Team and deeply appreciate the recognition of their extraordinary achievement,” USA Hockey told NBC News. “Due to the timing and previously scheduled academic and professional commitments following the Games, the athletes are unable to participate.

“They were honored to be included and are grateful for the acknowledgment.”

And maybe that’s the truth. But it’s hard to believe that every single member had some previous commitment so pressing that they couldn’t make a brief detour for the big occasion. And what of the men?:

“We’re so proud to represent the U.S. and when you get the chance to go to the White House and meet the President, we’re proud to be Americans and that’s so patriotic,” Jack Hughes told The Daily Mail this week. “No matter what your views are, we’re super excited to go to the White House tomorrow and be a part of that.”

Trump invited the men’s team to the State of the Union address during a call with the team shortly after their Sunday win over Canada.

“I don’t know how much we’re allowed to say, but yes, yeah, we’re excited to go,” Quinn Hughes said Tuesday morning on ABC News. “Something you don’t get to do … I don’t know what today is — every Tuesday. But yeah, but, it’s going to be special for us, but I’m glad you mentioned the women’s team again. You know, we’re really happy for them. Obviously, a lot going on on social media surrounding our team and their team. But, you know, the last couple we’ve done a lot of training with them and got to know a lot of those girls really well. We’re extremely happy to come.”

The larger picture is that, whatever the reasons the hockey teams gave and whether the women’s refusal was political, the split does conform to a more widespread divergence between the sexes in the US on politics, especially among the young. This isn’t something that goes way back in history; it’s actually quite recent. There are plenty of articles on that:

[From 2024] Women of all age groups grew more likely to identify as liberal between 1999 and 2021 before drawing back slightly from that position since then. But the steepest increases in liberal ID occurred among women at either end of the age spectrum.

[From 2022] In 2021, 44 percent of young women consider themselves liberal, compared to only one quarter (25 percent) of young men, a nearly 20-point gender gap. A decade earlier, roughly similar numbers of young men (27 percent) and young women (30 percent) identified as liberal.

[From 2025] In an overall poll among all adults, 45% approve of Trump’s job performance and 55% disapprove. When narrowing the range to adults between the ages of 18 and 29, the gap widens, with 34% approving and 64% disapproving. When you break these numbers down between men and women, you find that 45% of young men approve of the Trump presidency, compared to only 24% of young women. That is a 21-point difference.

For other generations, there is still a gap between men and women, but it is nowhere near as large. Among adults older than 65, the difference is 13 points. For those between the ages of 45 and 64, the difference is 9 points, and for those between the ages of 30 and 44, the difference is only 7 points.

There are plenty more articles like that, but you get the idea.

Sports writers are unhappy, not with the reaction of the women’s team but rather the men’s:

The charge against the men’s team seems to be four-fold. First, that, having won the gold, its members declined to address the “tide of fascism in the United States” and instead said gauche hyper-nationalistic things, such as, “This is all about our country right now,” “I love the USA,” “I’m so proud to be American today,” “This is for every American,” “It’s the greatest country in the world,” and “Everyone better be wearing the red, white, and blue for as long as they can.” Second, that during a post-game phone call with a rollicking President Trump, the players didn’t band together on the spot to push back against his supposedly sexist jokes — or apologize later for their complicity. Third, that the team subsequently agreed to go to the White House to celebrate their victory — and, even worse, that it seems excited by that prospect. Fourth, that the FBI director, Kash Patel, went over to Italy to watch the game and then chugged beer with the team in the locker room. Together, the sporting press is keen to inform us, these decisions have “sullied” the USA’s victory and ruined the reputations of its architects for all time.

What nonsense this all is. What narrow, monomaniacal, outlandish, freakish guff. I had a low opinion of sports writers before the last 48 hours, but good grief do I now want to throw the entire corps into a lake. The USA men’s team wins the gold for the first time in 46 years, and the news cycle following that achievement is stocked with fringe, politicized crap.

That’s from Charles C. W. Cooke in National Review, by the way.

[NOTE: On a personal note, among my acquaintances young and old, there’s virtually no political difference between men and women. Almost everyone I know hates Trump. I, of course, am of a demographic that might be expected to join them. But I do not.]

The post Our men’s and women’s ice hockey teams reflect a larger political divide appeared first on The New Neo.

No more. Now everybody seems to be an NHL pro – both Americans and Canadians. For example, we get this about US goalie Connor Hellebuyck:

The Winnipeg Jets star is the reigning NHL MVP and winner of the Vezina Trophy as the league’s best goaltender. He cemented himself as the best netminder in the world with a gold medal game performance for the ages.

He stopped 41 of 42 shots against Canada, 27 of them coming from the slot and 17 of them coming from the inner slot, according to Hockey Stats.

So he plays for Winnipeg ordinarily, but he’s originally from Michigan and played at UMass in college. As far as I know, that’s typical in that it helps to be born in a place that has a long cold winter. There’s also the fact that his older brother played professional ice hockey as well, which happens quite a bit (see the story of Jack Hughes, who made the winning goal in overtime):

Hughes was born in Orlando, Florida and grew up in Toronto, Ontario, before relocating with his family to Michigan for his high school years while playing for the US NTDP. …

Hughes comes from a family of ice hockey athletes. … His older brother, Quinn, was drafted seventh overall in the 2018 NHL entry draft by the Vancouver Canucks. His younger brother, Luke, was drafted fourth overall by the Devils in the 2021 NHL entry draft. Their father, Jim Hughes, is a former ice hockey player and team captain for Providence College, an assistant coach for the Boston Bruins, and the director of player development for the Toronto Maple Leafs. His mother, Ellen Weinberg-Hughes, played ice hockey, lacrosse, and soccer at the University of New Hampshire and, in 2012, was inducted into the University of New Hampshire Athletics Hall of Fame. She also played for the United States women’s national ice hockey team, and won a silver medal at the 1992 World Championship.

His uncle Marty, and his cousin, Teddy Doherty, were also both involved in ice hockey. Marty last played in the British National League for the Dundee Stars, and Teddy last played for the Manchester Monarchs of the ECHL.

Now, that’s a hockey dynasty. And you can also see the interplay of US and Canada (as well as Britain, for the uncles).

I’ve lived in ice hockey country for most of my adult life, but I don’t skate except in the most rudimentary fashion. When my son was little I did what so many of the other parents in the neighborhood did, which was to take him for skating classes at the local rink. Where I live, this generally starts at the age of two or three.

But my son had about as much aptitude for it as his father or I do, which is to say none. He was pretty good at some sports later on, but not skating and certainly not back then. And yet other two- and three-year-olds there were skating rings around him, and I mean that literally. They obviously had begun to skate as soon as they could walk, and they already looked like mini-NHL prospects.

I was just as happy to have my son give it up, which he did by the time he was four. One of the main reasons I was happy was that it’s cold standing or sitting around ringside, when the place is almost empty. Classes usually happened early in the morning on weekends, too. Not really my cup of tea. You have to be dedicated, and those hockey families are very dedicated.

Oh, and you have to be willing to lose a lot of teeth.

[NOTE: There’s also this very sad story of ice hockey-playing brothers. RIP:

John Michael Gaudreau (August 13, 1993 – August 29, 2024) was an American professional ice hockey player. A winger, he played 11 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL). He played college ice hockey for the Boston College Eagles in NCAA Division I for three seasons beginning in 2011 and was selected in the fourth round, 104th overall, by the Calgary Flames in the 2011 NHL entry draft. Nicknamed “Johnny Hockey”, …

Gaudreau and his brother Matthew were killed by a drunk driver while cycling on August 29, 2024, in Oldmans Township, New Jersey. …

Gaudreau was born on August 13, 1993, in Salem, New Jersey, to Guy Gaudreau, a former soccer player, college hockey player, and high school coach from Beebe Plain, Vermont, and Jane Gaudreau. He had two sisters and a younger brother, Matthew, who played hockey for the Worcester Railers and the Bridgeport Sound Tigers in the ECHL and AHL, respectively. …

On the evening of August 29, 2024, Gaudreau and his brother Matthew were struck and killed by a drunk driver while they were cycling in Oldmans Township, New Jersey. The Gaudreau brothers were cycling at around 8 p.m. and were hit from the rear by a motorist who was attempting to pass other vehicles on a two-lane rural highway. Police responded to the incident at 8:19 p.m.; both brothers were found dead at the scene by the time police arrived.[114] The driver, 44-year-old Sean M. Higgins of Woodstown, was arrested for drunk driving and charged with death by auto, after telling responding officers at the scene that he had consumed “five or six” beers before driving and continued to consume alcohol while operating the car; he failed a breathalyzer test when administered by police, along with failing a field sobriety test. Both Gaudreau brothers were also legally intoxicated at the time of the collision. …

The brothers had traveled to the township to attend their sister Katie’s wedding, which had been scheduled to take place the following day. …

During the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, the American players also kept a Team USA #13 Gaudreau sweater with them. Johnny and Matthew’s surviving family including Guy, Meredith, Noa and Johnny Jr., also attended games during the tournament. When the United States defeated Canada in overtime to win the gold medal – the first for the men since the “Miracle on Ice” in Lake Placid in 1980 – the players skated Gaudreau’s jersey around the ice and then brought it and also Johnny Jr., who turned two the day of the gold medal game, and Noa out of the stands for the team photo following the medal ceremony.

The tributes are nice. But the deaths are unutterably sad.]

The post The US wins ice hockey gold appeared first on The New Neo.

Neo, have you seen the video of Alysa Liu’s skating at the Olympics? I am so impressed by her dance/ movement, and I can’t describe why it seems different, and wonderful. I would be interested in hearing your informed opinion, as I have come to appreciate the art of dance to some extent from the videos and comments that you have presented over the years.

First, the video (it can’t be embedded, but this will lead you to it on YouTube):

Many things combined to make Liu’s performance golden. One was, of course, that she skated what’s called a “clean” program in the technical sense, meaning that she made no obvious errors (or even subtle ones, as far as I can see, although I’m no skating expert). That was absolutely necessary.

But some of the other skaters did the same. And anyway, her special qualities weren’t just technical. Liu skated with remarkable fluidity and ease. That requires an ability to be somewhat relaxed at the same time you’re marshaling all your finely-honed physical forces. It’s a quality even some of the best skaters (or dancers or other performers) lack, and it’s something that helps the audience relax as they watch. They trust that she will do well and not give them any cause to feel tense. And her radiant smile helps, too.

But Liu has another special quality, which for want of a better term I’ll call unity. It comes from a very solid core – the center of the body from which all movement emanates – and it means that the movements of every part of the body are integrated into a seamless whole. There are no unincorporated parts, no herky-jerky movements. The head, hands, arms, back, every cell of the body is always part of a seamless whole that the watcher’s eye reads as satisfyingly one.

That can’t really be explained, although I just tried. Baryshnikov had it more than any other human being I’ve ever seen, before or since. The man was incapable of making a false move.

With Liu, it also helped that her music was fun: Donna Summer. Many of the other skaters used music that was extremely uninspiring.

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I also watched some of the halftime “entertainment,” curious about Bad Bunny. I didn’t expect to like it, and I didn’t – it’s very rare for me to like current popular (?) music. But the degree of tuneless awfulness of this particular selection was nevertheless surprising.

As for the Spanish – I can understand a fair amount of Spanish, but this sounded garbled. Turns out that was a plus, because apparently the lyrics often went like this (a sample) when translated:

Hell, what safaera
You have a f**king amazing a*s
Anything that gets you breaking the highway
Move it, move it, move it, move it

More translations can be found here, if you care to see them. Let’s just say that the one I offered above is the mildest by far. I didn’t check to see if they’re authentic – but if they are, ugh.

Bad Bunny is from Puerto Rico and his other theme is that “America” means not the US but the two continents, north and south. Apparently the NFL is trying to reach out to Latin American audiences, and Bad Bunny is very popular in that neck of the woods, whereas football (American style) is not. Thus, the Bad Bunny halftime.

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I very quickly smelled an AI rat. First of all, I don’t think women ever compete on the pommel horse. But secondly, although there are some 75-year-olds who do remarkable things, this “Marha Stillman’s” feats just didn’t seem real.

And they’re not. If you go to the video’s channel it becomes even more clear, because not only is Stillman a whiz at the pommel horse, she can do just about everything – the world’s most versatile athlete.

From the comments, it seems that these videos dupe a lot of people even though the channel site admits to being AI. The following message appears there, although you have to click to see the whole thing:

Official AI-generated sports highlights featuring 75-year-old athlete Marta Stillman — competing at world championships, setting records, and delivering unreal moments with realistic broadcast presentation.

Full TV-style coverage, professional commentary, authentic camera angles, and high-energy action — all created with advanced AI.

The creators even have her physique change somewhat in line with the demands of the different events, as well as her hairdos, outfits, and makeup. For example, she’s slim for most, but here she’s somewhat bulked-up and de-glammed for the shotput:

O brave new world, that has such AI people in it.

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My experience with pool being mostly limited to the old movie The Hustler, I never really thought about whether pool is a sport or not. But whatever it is – and I guess it is – men have the upper-body advantage in reach and power.

And so we have this:

Harriet Haynes and Lucy Smith, who were both assigned male at birth, fought for the title at the Ultimate Pool Women’s Pro Series Event 2 in Wigan in the UK this weekend.

Haynes went on to defeat Smith 8-6, but vocal critics on both sides of the Atlantic claimed the real loser in the battle was women’s sport. British former Olympics swimmer Sharron Davies and American former college swimmer Riley Gaines were among those speaking out.

However, others celebrated the achievement and claimed being trans had not given the players any unfair benefits during the game.

Yeah, right. It’s just chance that of all the women on the circuit, two biological men were the finalists:

Opponents of trans players in pool suggest they benefit from various advantages, such as being able to smash their break shot with more speed. While one British pool group, the English Blackball Pool Federation (EBPF), has claimed that trans women benefit from a greater hand span, stronger fingers, and longer limbs enabling a greater reach across the table, according to The Independent.

If you look at the photo of the two finalists here, I think it’s interesting that they resemble each other enough to be siblings.

The post The “allow trans women” (that is, biological men) movement in women’s sports has reached its apogee as two biological men compete against each other in the finals of a pool tournament appeared first on The New Neo.

Note how that CBS News article frames it in the lede – not as banning biological men, but as banning girls and women who just happen to be trans girls and women. Many readers probably wouldn’t even know that this means biological boys and men:

President Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order to ban transgender girls and women from competing on sports teams that match their gender identity, marking his latest move targeting transgender rights.

I wager a lot of trans people don’t like how far the movement went when people like swimmer Lia Thomas pushed for being considered a woman when there was no question Lia was a post-pubescent male with the body of a post-pubescent male. It’s only much further down in the story that CBS News even attempts to explain what the EO really refers to.

Allowing biological males who identify as women to compete in girls’ and women’s sports is a very unpopular hill that the Democrat candidates chose to die on [emphasis mine]:

A recent New York Times/Ipsos survey found the vast majority of Americans, including a majority of Democrats, don’t think transgender athletes should be permitted to compete in women’s sports. Of the 2,128 people polled, 79% said biological males who identify as women should not be allowed to participate in women’s sports.

Here’s the signing ceremony. Note how relaxed Trump is:

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It will take some time before the exact cause is known, but human error or errors seem obviously to be the reason this happened. Could be pilot error – almost certainly of the helicopter – could be controller error, could be both.

For those who were around in the 1980s, the crash of Air Florida Flight 90 almost inevitably comes to mind. It was also bitterly cold that day, and the cold was part of the reason for the crash because the pilots didn’t follow the proper de-icing procedures. The plane hit a bridge and plummeted into the icy Potomac, but the fact that it happened in daylight helped. Still, there were only five survivors, one saved by the heroic efforts of passer-by Lenny Skutnik, who plunged into the icy water to save a woman.

As I said, no survivors for last night’s crash, and perhaps no possibility of survivors even if it had occurred in broad daylight. RIP. Some of the dead were up-and-coming figure skaters, their coaches, and families – fourteen in all. They included six people from the skating club of Boston: two teenage skaters, two mothers, and two coaches who had been the 1994 World Champions in the pairs competition. I’m old enough to remember the horrible plane crash in 1961 in which the entire US figure skating team was killed. It made a deep impression on me as a child.

President Trump made some remarks today about last night’s crash, for which he blamed DEI. You can see some of the exchanges here. Does he know something we don’t? Possibly. But whether that’s the case or not, in my opinion his remarks were premature and inappropriate for the day after. There’s plenty of time to blame DEI if and when more information comes in that indicates that DEI was a factor.

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