You keep using that word...

...I don't think it means what you think it means.

Trouble is brewing over United States ice hockey goalie Jonathan Quick and the “Support Our Troops” slogan on his helmet. Slogans of this sort are banned under Olympic rules and Quick will be told to remove it, the International Ice Hockey Federation has told Reuters.
...
IOC rules forbid political propoganda or advertisements being placed on equipment. “If the players don’t agree with the interpretation they can ask the USOC (United States Olympic Committee) to petition the IOC.”

Political propaganda?  Wha...?  I don't recall GOP or DNC patches on the uniforms.  Besides, this is the Olympics - the non-partisan gathering of the fraternity of athletic endeavor in which, every four years, you gather with your countrymen to totally pwn stupid furrinurs and rub it IN! THEIR! FACE!  Afterward, they give out medals to the athletes who defeat their foreign opponents, and the winners are stood on a podium in front of millions while their national anthem is played.

If they were to say that the stated rationale of the modern Games is to meet on the field of play, rather than the field of battle, then perhaps they'd have a point - but to reduce this to politics is rather like objecting to a ransom note because of the grammar.  If this is the best they could do, then it's obvious that the ruling is itself a petty dig.

Well and duly noted.  They should be told to note our mocking laughter in reply.  Patriotism is not political, and it's kind of most of the point of having Olympics in the first place.  Most of the countries participating in these Games have fought alongside our forces, or are free today only because of them.  That is a fraternity that goes far deeper than politics.  He that to-day sheds his blood with me shall be my brother...

Tim Thomas, btw, has already gone Vichy and has covered his own "Support the Troops" backplate.  I hope he gets traded to Edmonton.

(stick-tap to Gabriel Malor at the Ace of Spades)