The Olympics are over, but people are still buzzing about the gold medal win celebration by the Canadian women’s hockey team. You know, the one where they were “swigging from bottles of champagne, guzzling beer and smoking cigars,” according to the Associated Press. Was what the hockey players did really that big of a deal?

After the “incident“ happened, the International Olympic Committee said it planned to investigate the team’s actions, and also ask the international hockey federation and the Canadian Olympic Committee to weigh in. Team Canada has since apologized for their on-ice festiveness.

Yahoo! Sports reporter Chris Chase seems to think the IOC came down a little hard on the lady hockey players though. “In past Olympics we’ve seen steroids, political boycotts, cheating and judging scandals. A few puffs of a cigar hardly seems to be in the same league,” he wrote.

Columnist Roy MacGregor of Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail, also thinks the IOC made a big stink out of nothing. “Women smoking cigars? Women drinking champagne and beer? Didn’t they just win an Olympic gold medal. And aren’t they a hockey team?,” he said.

“If I had a cigar, I’d light one up for them, and put a torch to overblown political correctness,” said Arturo Mora, Kansas City Star Midwest Voices columnist, not mincing words.


What did you think of the IOC’s reaction?