Amid officials’ concern about vocal crowd reactions against the US, the vice-president’s visit to a hockey game felt closer to theater than geopolitics
S
everal thousand spectators who turned up for a Thursday afternoon hockey game in Milan’s western suburbs may have gotten a sneak preview of the 2028 Republican ticket when US vice-president JD Vance and secretary of state Marco Rubio attended the United States women’s Olympic opener. With one hockey game already postponed because of norovirus, Olympic organizers could have been forgiven for hoping to avoid any other sudden waves of nausea inside the secondary rink across town.
Vance is in Italy to lead the official US delegation at Friday’s opening ceremony, joined by second lady Usha Vance, Rubio and billionaire Tilman Fertitta, the US ambassador to Italy and owner of the NBA’s Houston Rockets. The group watched Thursday’s game from the second and third rows at center ice behind the scorer’s table alongside Olympic gold medal-winning hockey sisters Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson and Monique Lamoureux-Morando.
Maybe it was the roughly four dozen US Secret Service agents forming something close to a Roman testudo around Vance’s party that tempered any potential negative reception. More likely, it was the far more seductive phenomenon of celebrity gravity. Nearly everyone within eyesight of the vice-president – including volunteers, arena staff, private security and working media – appeared to have a phone raised, recording the moment as he made his way to his seat.
