U.S. And Canadian Women"s Hockey Brings Plenty Of Heat To The Ice

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hide captionThe rival teams have already clashed during a Sochi Olympics preparation game last December. They will face each other in an early round game tomorrow.

Abelimages/Getty Images

The rival teams have already clashed during a Sochi Olympics preparation game last December. They will face each other in an early round game tomorrow.

Abelimages/Getty Images

Wednesday, the American women’s hockey team meets their arch rival Canada on the ice in Sochi at the Winter Olympics. It’s an early round game, but when it comes to these two teams, which are expected to meet in the gold medal game, there’s no such thing as a low-stakes match.

When they meet on the ice, things get heated: A match between the two teams in late December turned into a brawl. After the “melee,” the referees handed out 10 fighting majors and other infractions.

They also got into a fight in October, and those fights turned women’s hockey into a bit of an Internet sensation. Some fights went viral, but they’re not unusual, says Brianne Jenner, a Canadian forward.

“It’s not as rare as people think,” she says. “It’s just not always caught on video.”

“That’s just kind of what happens when you’re in an intense hockey game,” she says. “You know, it was just part of a hockey game and I think it’s good that… so many people are interested in it at least.”

These fights come up a lot, like probably in every single interview these women have done since arriving in Sochi. And the athletes seem conflicted: Yes, the fights happened; no, it’s not all that common. They are neither embarrassed nor proud. But, yes, it could happen again. Lyndsey Fry is an American forward.

“Pretty much everyone I’ve ever talked to that’s never seen a women’s game before, even in college, they’ll leave and be, like, so impressed,” Fry says. “It’s like, ‘Well, yeah, maybe you should have come out a little sooner.’

“There’s all the media coverage of the fight or whatever and it’s like, ‘That’s not really what women’s hockey is all about, but if it gets people watching, they’re going to fall in love with the sport.’”

‘One Of The Best Rivalries In Sport’

What is it about this rivalry that makes it so intense?

Two things: They play each other all the time; and when it comes to women’s hockey, America and Canada are in a league all their own. Both teams are coming into tomorrow’s game undefeated, and those games weren’t even close.

Take the one Monday between the U.S. and Switzerland. In a matter of 55 seconds, Team USA scored three goals — an American Olympic record. There were only eight seconds between the second goal and the third; the celebratory music hadn’t even stopped playing before they scored again.

Amanda Kessel scored two of the goals.

“When you score so many quickly, it just knocks the wind out of the other team,” she says.

Kessel, whose brother plays in the NHL, spoke after the game, which ended with a score of 9-0.

“It’s tough to get back up on your feet,” she says. “You just kind of keep pounding them and keep pounding them, and I think that’s what really did it to them.”

If history is any guide, the Canada game will be a whole lot closer, and when it comes to these two teams, there’s plenty of history. They met seven times in three months late last year. Jayna Hefford, who has played for Team Canada since the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, says it is one of the best rivalries in sport because the two teams push each other to get better.

“It’s intense, and it’s the games you want to play in as an athlete,” she says.”I think as a fan, those are the games that people love to watch, so it’s the best game to be in for sure.”

And a lot of people will be watching this time to see whether they throw off their gloves and fight again.

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U.S. And Canadian Women"s Hockey Brings Plenty Of Heat To The Ice

Pundits predict plenty in 2014

POLITICO asked a slew of soothsayers to offer their best predictions for 2014 | AP Photos

There’s a lot to wonder about what 2014 holds: It’s a midterm election year, the president’s popularity is falling and who, oh who, is going to run for the White House in 2016?

Enter the pundits, of whom there’s no shortage.

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2014: Races, candidates to watch

POLITICO asked a slew of these soothsayers to offer their best predictions for 2014. The following are our top 10 picks, suggesting everything from Obamacare’s failure to the emergence of a “Fourth Way” in U.S. politics.

(PHOTOS: Senators up for election in 2014)

1. Tad Devine, Democratic strategist: Toss out the incumbents.

“In 2014, more incumbent members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, will lose their seats than at any time in the last half a century. There is going to be a rejection of incumbents seeking reelection at an unprecedented rate.”

2. Rick Wilson, Republican strategist: Obamacare gets worse.

“Obamacare will keep passing more phase-lines that will generate one negative story after another. The brand is hopelessly damaged, and by midyear Democrats in all but the safest seats will be walking back from it. It’s a Democrat-killing, legacy-destroying death machine.”

3. Chris Lehane, Democratic strategist: Dems win big in governors’ mansions.

“As the Virginia election foreshadowed, Democrats have big wins/gains in gubernatorial campaigns in ’14, raising further questions about the long-term viability of the current Republican brand.”

(Also on POLITICO: In 2014, D.C. resolves to…)

4. Chip Saltsman, GOP strategist and former Mike Huckabee ’08 campaign manager: Dems will throw in the towel in Arkansas.

“You’re going to see the Democratic Senate committee pull out of Arkansas fairly early next year. I think that race is done — they will not spend hardly any money in Arkansas, because they’ve got enough other seats to worry about.”

5. Ana Navarro, Republican strategist and CNN contributor; former McCain ’08 and Huntsman ’12 adviser: Republican senators will keep their jobs.

“Incumbent Republican Senators Graham, Enzi, McConnell, Cornyn, will all give their primary opponents a whupping. … oh, and lastly, the Miami Heat will win another championship.”

6. Bob Shrum, Democratic strategist: Obamacare won’t be so bad after all.

“By September, Republican strategists will be telling GOP candidates to talk about something other than Obamacare. By then you’ll have a lot of people enrolled, people benefiting from (rules about covering) pre-existing conditions, the issue will not be what it seems to be now.”

(PHOTOS: Governors’ offices up for grabs in 2014)

7. Mary Matalin, Republican strategist: It’s not D vs. R, it’s America vs. the Beltway.

“The midterm dynamic, which will be the 2016 hedge-bet holding pattern of course, will be less Republican vs. Democrat than the USA vs. Beltway madness, with sensible sounding, record-touting governors of both parties (and some blue thinkers like Manchin and red thinkers like Ryan) positioning for “The Fourth Way,” which will evolve and strengthen as the unfolding primaries demonstrate the resilience of a “USA Party.”

8. Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics: Expect another Senate retirement.

“At least one additional U.S. senator will announce his or her retirement in 2014. If you look back in recent cycles, there is usually a surprise that nobody sees retiring, like [former Maine Sen.] Olympia Snowe. … It’s a pretty good bet, but it’s no sure thing.”

9. Whit Ayres, Republican pollster: Obama’s numbers will drop even lower.

“As Obamacare unravels, President Obama’s job approval will challenge the low mark set by President [George W.] Bush during his second term.”

10. Paul Begala, Democratic strategist and CNN contributor: Predictions are dangerous.

“I predict that anyone dumb enough to make a public prediction about 2014 will regret it.”

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misstated the state Olympia Snowe represented in Congress.

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Pundits predict plenty in 2014

For Freshmen in the House, Seats of Plenty

Mark Lyons for The New York Times

Representative Andy Barr, right, with Speaker John A. Boehner. Mr. Barr, along with his fellow freshmen Ann Wagner and Tom Cotton, has raised more money from finance industry PACs than many longtime House members have.

WASHINGTON — Representative Andy Barr, a Republican from Kentucky with little experience in the intricacies of Wall Street, was among the lucky House freshmen to secure a seat on the powerful Financial Services Committee.

Now, half a year into his first term, he has emerged as a telling example of why the panel is sometimes called “the cash committee” — a place, critics say, where there are big incentives for freshmen to do special favors for the industry.

Mr. Barr, 40, a first-time elected official, has raised nearly as much money this year from political action committees run by major banks, credit unions and insurance companies as longtime lawmakers like Speaker John A. Boehner and other party leaders.

The flood of financial industry cash — $ 150,000 in political action committee donations to Mr. Barr in just six months — is hardly an accident.

One afternoon in April, Mr. Barr hosted credit union lobbyists and executives in his House office just before a committee hearing, promising that he would help protect a federal tax break worth $ 500 million a year, the executives said. Last month, he introduced legislation to eliminate a new federal rule intended to prevent banks from issuing mortgages to customers who could not afford to repay the debt — a measure pushed by bank lobbyists who had visited his office.

“People support him because they agree with him,” Catherine Gatewood, Mr. Barr’s spokeswoman, said after he declined requests for an interview.

But Brad Miller, a North Carolina Democrat who served on the Financial Services Committee until January, when he left Congress, said the intense focus on fund-raising by freshman lawmakers like Mr. Barr is a potent sign of the harmful way that money distorts priorities in Washington, for both Republicans and Democrats.

“Freshmen are pushed and pushed and pushed to raise money — it’s how they are judged by the leadership and the political establishment in Washington,” said Mr. Miller, who added that he felt the same pressure when he joined the Financial Services Committee in 2003 as a freshman. “It’s only natural that it has got to be on your mind that a vote one way or other is going to affect the ability to raise money.”

After the elections in November, Democratic Party leaders gave a PowerPoint presentation urging their freshman members to spend as much as four hours a day making fund-raising calls while in Washington, and an additional hour of “strategic outreach” holding breakfasts or “meet and greets” with possible financial supporters. That adds up to more time than these first-term lawmakers were advised to spend on Congressional business.

Much of this reflects the political reality that freshmen like Mr. Barr, particularly those from districts in which neither party dominates, are considered vulnerable. And that explains why a seat on the Financial Services Committee is so coveted.

Political action committees — set up by lobbying firms, unions, corporations and other groups trying to push their agenda in Congress — have donated more money to Financial Services Committee members in the first six months of this year than to members of any other committee. The $ 9.4 million total is nearly $ 2 million more than the total for the Armed Services Committee, the only House panel with more members.

With so many lawmakers clamoring to be on the Financial Services Committee, it has grown to 61 members from 44 since 1980, forcing the installation of four tiered rows of seats in the Rayburn House Office Building — with the first row of lawmakers on the floor, just in front of the tables used for witnesses.

The committee’s chairman, Representative Jeb Hensarling, Republican of Texas, remains the top recipient of donations from industry PACs this year, taking in $ 282,000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit group that tracks the influence of money in politics. But three Republican freshmen — Mr. Barr and Representatives Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Ann Wagner of Missouri — have raised more money from industry PACs than many longtime committee members like Representative Spencer Bachus, an Alabama Republican who served as the panel’s chairman until the end of last year.

The imbalance is apparent on the Democratic side as well. Each of the seven freshman Democrats on the committee has raised more industry PAC money so far this year than the committee’s top Democrat, Representative Maxine Waters of California, who has had a testy relationship with the industry.

These freshman Democrats joined this year with Republicans on the committee — over the objection of Ms. Waters and the Obama administration — to support measures advocated by Wall Street banks that would roll back some of the strictest provisions of the landmark Dodd-Frank financial regulations, which were passed in 2010 in the aftermath of the global recession.

A spokeswoman for Representative Patrick Murphy, a Florida Democrat who has taken in more industry PAC money than any other Democratic freshman, $ 53,500, said his votes had been cast based on what he believed was in the best interest of his constituents, not to please potential contributors. But she agreed that the pressure to raise money was intense.

“The system is what the system is,” said Tiffany Muller, Mr. Murphy’s deputy chief of staff, adding that her boss supported changing campaign finance rules.

Mr. Barr’s industry outreach started even before he was sworn in to office — at a “debt retirement” luncheon at Charlie Palmer Steak, two blocks from the Capitol, that he co-sponsored with a lobbyist who represents companies like Bank of America and MasterCard International. Tens of thousands of dollars came in to help Mr. Barr eliminate his campaign debt, including large checks from the American Bankers Association and PNC Bank, among others.

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For Freshmen in the House, Seats of Plenty