Christine Flowers: Misguided matriarchy can’t dim men’s hockey Olympic gold

Looking for a good movie the other evening, I came across one that I’d missed when it was out in theaters about a decade ago: “The Mighty Macs.”

This was a slightly fictionalized version of a true-life triumph: small Catholic women’s college fields a basketball team, and miracles happen.

Immaculata College, with girls in skirted uniforms, stunned the nation and won a national title. And another. And another. Hence, the Mighty Macs.

Although a bit stylized in the way that Disney tends to do these things, sanding down the rougher edges of reality, it was incredibly moving to see a part of my own history portrayed so beautifully onscreen.

I say “my own history” even though I never bounced a basketball, because this was Immaculata. If you went to a Catholic single-sex high school in the 1970s, you felt incredibly proud of these older women who brought glory to the tribe.

The thing that struck me about this movie and the event that it portrayed so lovingly onscreen was that there was very little support for women’s athletics in the early ’70s.

These girls were afterthoughts on the national stage, and they were still called “girls.”

Yes, the third-wave feminists were definitely doing their thing across the land, but at small Catholic institutions, they didn’t have much of a foothold. We had nuns. We did not need, or want, bra burners.

The other thing that struck me was the effortless joy of their victory, the lack of self-consciousness, and the gratitude for being allowed this spot on the national stage.

Fast forward a half century. Now, women’s sports are well-funded, well-respected, widely watched.

There are “girl dads” who proudly tout the accomplishments of their daughters, which is a good thing.

There are high profile champions, some with pink hair, who lobby for equal pay, equal airtime, equal everything.

Of course, it is notable that many of these women also welcome the inclusion of people who were not born as women but want to use our bathrooms.

With the rare exceptions like Martina Navratilova, Riley Gaines and Jennifer Sey, most of these “girl power” women are a bit squishy on the “girl” part.

As I was watching “The Mighty Macs,” with their joy and their humility in the face of such an awesome destiny, I thought of the women’s gold medal hockey team, their supporters, and the reaction to the recent kerfuffle in the Olympic locker room concerning that other hockey team.

That other hockey team, the one with young men who were boisterous and loud and perhaps not as polite as society commands, had just won a gold medal.

They had just beaten the heavy odds and snatched victory from the reigning Canadians, their forever nemesis. They had done it 46 years to the day that the last U.S. men’s hockey team had won gold, that “Miracle on Ice” that was also beautifully fictionalized in Disney fashion.

Most importantly for those of us from the area, those of us who grew up loving the Flyers, freezing in the cheap seats at the Spectrum, mourning the loss of Bernie Parent and sending our sons to skate at Rizzo Rink with hopes of future glory, this was the group of young men who honored their dead teammate Johnny “Hockey” Gaudreau, tragically killed by a drunk driver along with his brother Matty two years ago this summer.

When they hoisted his jersey and skated around the ice, tears came to my eyes. When they scooped up his tiny, beautiful children and made sure they were a forever part of the team photo, I lost it. I sobbed.

This was the team that was then the target of attacks, of accusations of misogyny, of being the worst expression of the white patriarchy from those same daughters of girl dads who have no problem with men in bathrooms but demand obeisance to the misguided matriarchy.

I don’t have space, here, to include all of the catty, mean girl comments made about the men’s team.

Most of them were aimed at shaming the men into not going to the White House, and not attending the State of the Union because the women hadn’t been invited quickly enough.

Many of the ladies were outraged that the guys, celebrating their unexpected victory in the locker room and exulting in the plaudits of the FBI director — no, he should not have been there — and the president actually laughed at a funny joke from the hated “Orange Man.”

Frankly, I think Donald showed a great sense of humor, and his words were almost prophetic. He said that he’d better invite the women or he’d be impeached.

He hasn’t been impeached, yet, but that’s about the only thing the ladies and their male allies haven’t threatened.

My point is that we need to stop finding misogyny in our cereal bowls, ladies. We need to stop screaming about the respect we are owed because we are simply proving that we don’t deserve it when we act like toddlers.

Be like the Mighty Macs, not a fan of Miss Rachel.

Yes, the women’s hockey team, which was supposed to win and did win, deserves the glory and the praise.

But let’s be honest. The stars this week were the men, the ones who created another Miracle on Ice, the ones who were giddy with joy, and the ones who remembered their fallen brother.

The women won gold. The men were golden.

This article originally appeared in the Delco Times.

Christine Flowers can be reached at cflowers1961@gmail.com.