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upworthy

This father-son hockey hug is going viral, and it's a great example of male affection.

Hockey player Bobby Butler never thought he'd have a shot at making the U.S. Olympic team.

Typically, those coveted spots are reserved for America's top NHL stars. But a surprising announcement from the league — this year, they've decided not to allow rostered players to compete in the Olympics — has opened the door to lesser-known players like Butler.

Butler during his time in the NHL with the Nashville Predators. Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images


The 30-year-old Butler was, at one point, a journeyman NHL player, bouncing from team to team due to cuts and trades. Today, he plays for Milwaukee Admirals of the AHL (American Hockey League — sort of like the NHL's minor leagues). Butler represented America in the 2013 World Championship, where the U.S. team took bronze, but the Olympic team would be, without a doubt, the biggest stage of his career.

While the lack of NHL star-power meant more opportunity for greener players, competition was fierce: Team officials searched high and low for talent to join the squad — the college ranks, Americans in foreign hockey leagues, and players from the AHL — before putting their recruits through an intense trial period.

Butler made the cut. And while he was overjoyed, there was one person in his life he hoped would understand his intense flurry of emotions: his dad.

Team cameras were filming practice when Butler's dad stopped by, and the newest member of the U.S. men's hockey team got to give his old man some good news.

Butler's dad swelled with pride and wrapped his son in a bear hug as teammates cheer. The heartwarming video gives major feels:

Dads have a reputation for often being stingy with displays of physical affection. But that might all be changing.

That's not to say that fathers don't love their kids! They do. But it's been suggested that, generally, men prefer to show affection (particularly to other men and their sons) by bonding over shared activities or doing something nice. Hugs, kisses, and "I love you's" can be few and far between.

That kind of bonding has its place, but studies show that kids really benefit from a lot of warmth and physical affection from their parents. The good news is that some research suggests many men today might just be up to the task, and are driven to provide "better quality of fathering than they had experienced."

In any case, the viral response to Butler's embrace with his father shows that maybe we are ready for a world where a father can kiss his son, hold him when he's sad, and embrace him in moments of joy.

Even in the rough-and-tumble world of professional hockey.

A pitbull stares at the window, looking for the mailman.


Dogs are naturally driven by a sense of purpose and a need for belonging, which are all part of their instinctual pack behavior. When a dog has a job to do, it taps into its needs for structure, purpose, and the feeling of contributing to its pack, which in a domestic setting translates to its human family.

But let’s be honest: In a traditional domestic setting, dogs have fewer chores they can do as they would on a farm or as part of a rescue unit. A doggy mom in Vancouver Island, Canada had fun with her dog’s purposeful uselessness by sharing the 5 “chores” her pitbull-Lab mix does around the house.

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Representative Image from Canva

Let's not curse any more children with bad names, shall we?

Some parents have no trouble giving their children perfectly unique, very meaningful names that won’t go on to ruin their adulthood. But others…well…they get an A for effort, but might want to consider hiring a baby name professional.

Things of course get even more complicated when one parent becomes attached to a name that they’re partner finds completely off-putting. It almost always leads to a squabble, because the more one parent is against the name, the more the other parent will go to bat for it.

This seemed to be the case for one soon-to-be mom on the Reddit AITA forum recently. Apparently, she was second-guessing her vehement reaction to her husband’s, ahem, avant garde baby name for their daughter, which she called “the worst name ever.”

But honestly, when you hear this name, I think you’ll agree she was totally in the right.

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Innovation

A student accidentally created a rechargeable battery that could last 400 years

"This thing has been cycling 10,000 cycles and it’s still going." ⚡️⚡️

There's an old saying that luck happens when preparation meets opportunity.

There's no better example of that than a 2016 discovery at the University of California, Irvine, by doctoral student Mya Le Thai. After playing around in the lab, she made a discovery that could lead to a rechargeable battery that could last up to 400 years. That means longer-lasting laptops and smartphones and fewer lithium ion batteries piling up in landfills.

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A beautiful cruise ship crossing the seas.

Going on a cruise can be an incredible getaway from the stresses of life on the mainland. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t an element of danger when living on a ship 200-plus feet high, traveling up to 35 miles per hour and subject to the whims of the sea.

An average of about 19 people go overboard every year, and only around 28% survive. Cruise ship lawyer Spencer Aronfeld explained the phenomenon in a viral TikTok video, in which he also revealed the secret code the crew uses when tragedy happens.

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Joy

Kudos to the heroes who had 90 seconds to save lives in the Key Bridge collapse

The loss of 6 lives is tragic, but the dispatch recording shows it could have been so much worse.

Representative image by Gustavo Fring/Pexels

The workers who responded to the Dali's mayday call saved lives with their quick response.

As more details of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore emerge, it's becoming more apparent how much worse this catastrophe could have been.

Just minutes before 1:30am on March 26, shortly after leaving port in Baltimore Harbor, a cargo ship named Dali lost power and control of its steering, sending it careening into a structural pillar on Key Bridge. The crew of the Dali issued a mayday call at 1:26am to alert authorities of the power failure, giving responders crucial moments to prepare for a potential collision. Just 90 seconds later, the ship hit a pylon, triggering a total collapse of the 1.6-mile bridge into the Patapsco River.

Dispatch audio of those moments shows the calm professionalism and quick actions that limited the loss of life in an unexpected situation where every second counted.

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Joy

Yale's pep band had to miss the NCAA tournament. University of Idaho said, 'We got you.'

In an act of true sportsmanship, the Vandal band learned Yale's fight song, wore their gear and cheered them on.

Courtesy of University of Idaho

The Idaho Vandals answered the call when Yale needed a pep band.

Yale University and the University of Idaho could not be more different. Ivy League vs. state school. East Coast vs. Pacific Northwest. City vs. farm town. But in the first two rounds of the NCAA basketball tournament, extenuating circumstances brought them together as one, with the Bulldogs and the Vandals becoming the "Vandogs" for a weekend.

When Yale made it to the March Madness tournament, members of the school's pep band had already committed to other travel plans during spring break. They couldn't gather enough members to make the trek across the country to Spokane, Washington, so the Yale Bulldogs were left without their fight song unless other arrangements could be made.

When University of Idaho athletic band director Spencer Martin got wind of the need less than a week before Yale's game against Auburn, he sent out a message to his band members asking if anyone would be interested in stepping in. The response was a wave of immediate yeses, so Martin got to work arranging instruments and the students dedicated themselves to learning Yale's fight song and other traditional Yale pep songs.

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