ESPN used to be the premiere place to see sports pundits going toe-to-toe with their opinions, with SportsCenter the network’s most lauded hub. These days, that luster is mostly gone, having left through the same door that many SportsCenter icons exited for greener pastures, and social media has only helped make that discourse more splintered. Case in point: longtime anchor Linda Cohn and sporadic anchor Keith Olbermann waged a quickly spiraling war of words online over hockey star Auston Matthews. Sort of, but not really.
With the Winter Olympics and the NHL giving hockey fans more than just Heated Rivalry Season 2 to talk about, the U.S. men’s hockey captain leader Auston Matthews made headlines for leading the team to gold against Team Canada during a break from captaining the nation’s Toronto Maple Leafs. Not all headlines rang positive, however, as the athlete was criticized for heartily celebrating with FBI director Kash Patel in the locker room after the win, and for accepting Donald Trump’s White House invitation for the State of the Union address, in light of the President’s derisive comments about Canada.
Linda Cohn, a college hockey player and SportsCenter vet since 1992, shared plenty of celebratory posts for the U.S. victory, and also shared her thoughts about an op-ep that leaned into the idea that Matthews was choosing to side with Trump instead of Canada. In her X post, she said:
Be better. I hope you don’t speak for Leafs fans.
Linda Cohn
She also commented beneath the outlet’s post with:
Are you kidding me? If this is how Leafs fans feel, If I’m Auston Matthews, I’d take control of my life and go where I’m wanted.
Linda Cohn
For further context, part of the ire that Matthews sparked across Canadian media stems from him taking the White House visit instead of taking his Olympic-worthy skills immediately back to the Maple Leafs at a pivotal point in their season when playoff contention isn’t a given. There’s speculation that he will be replaced as captain of the Maple Leafs sooner rather than later, though that could easily just be nonsense.
With his response to Cohn’s post, Keith Olbermann left hockey out of it altogether, instead going with:
Hate to finally break it to you Linda Cohn. I'd say ‘be better to you’ but it's an impossibility. You're a self-obsessed politically motivated clown who thinks HER leanings are sacrosanct and everyone else's must be suppressed. We've indulged you all these years. That now ends.
Keith Olbermann
Things escalated even further when Cohn shared a lengthier reply to Olbermann’s post that went even harder. In her words:
Amazing Keith Olbermann that you describe me how the world actually describes you. What happened to you? Gaslighting and bullying a former colleague? Is that really your thing now? It’s really sad and disappointing. Everyone knows you’ve been irrelevant since you left sports and decided to share your uninvited warped world views with the rest of us. You sound bitter and miserable. I hope you get the help you need.
Linda Cohn
To which Olbermann replied with a simple "lol."
Wading into the comment section beneath any of these posts is only for those with strong stomachs. Suffice to say, everyone agrees and disagrees with everyone about everything. Remember when this was sort of about hockey?
You probably won't catch that kind of former co-anchor dialogue on ESPN or anywhere else on the 2026 TV schedule, since it's far more at home on social media. So the phrase "stay tuned" doesn't quite apply, but do it anyway.
