Legendary NBA player Charles Barkley was not at all pleased with the criticisms leveled against the professional basketball league by Vice President Mike Pence who slammed the NBA for how it handled the controversy with China. In fact, Barkley was so displeased he told pence to “shut the hell up.” Here’s more from TheBlaze: Pence called out the NBA on Thursday for not standing up for Hong Kong. “Some of the NBA’s biggest players and owners, who routinely exercise their freedom to criticize this country, lose their voices when it comes to the freedom and rights of other people,” Pence said. “In siding with the Chinese Communist Party and silencing free speech, the NBA is acting like a wholly owned subsidiary of the authoritarian regime.” Barkley took offense to Pence’s stance and accused the vice president of hypocrisy. “First of all, Vice President Pence needs to shut the hell up,” Barkley said Thursday during TNT’s pregame show. “All American companies are doing business in China. … I don’t understand why these holier-than-thou politicians, if they’re so worried about China, why don’t they stop all transactions with China?” https://twitter.com/wonderousATX/status/1187512456320606212 NBA Commissioner Adam Silver also responded to Pence’s criticism, though his comments were significantly less harsh than those issued by Barkley. “We’ve adhered to our core values from the first moment. To the extent that there was any doubt about that, we reinforced that those are our core values. And I’ll just say again, once again, we’re going to double down on engaging with the people of China and India and throughout Africa, around the world, regardless of their governments.” Many folks have noted that the same kind of criticism that Pence has issued toward the NBA could also be turned on President Trump. Pence himself has openly supported the protests in…

John Krupinsky, a hockey coach who recently went viral after he demanded his players respect the National Anthem, isn’t backing down from his remarks, stating the reason he’s passionate about this issue is that he’s seen too much death and disrespect. In the video in question, Krupinsky — who also serves as a police sergeant, says, “If there’s anybody here who is going to be disrespectful to either the American or the Canadian national anthem, grab your gear and get the f*** out now because you’ll never see the ice in this arena. We don’t have that problem in hockey. We’re better than that, but there was no sense in wasting anybody’s time if that s*** was going to happen.” Here’s more from TheBlaze: The assistant coach for the Danbury Hat Tricks of the Federal Hockey League discussed the video on “Fox & Friends.” “I take pride in my country,” Krupinksy said. “I’ve unfortunately seen it cover too many coffins. I think we can take a timeout to give two minutes’ worth of respect to our soldiers, to our firemen, to your policemen. I don’t think that’s asking too much. I’m not going to apologize for asking players to show a little bit of respect when it’s either the American or Canadian national anthem.” He added, “Some people said, ‘Oh you wouldn’t let your players protest.’ I wanna be clear: My players would be free to protest on their day off. If they had something they wanted to do.” When the national anthem is playing, however, it’s an entirely different story. “I don’t think it’s too much to ask your employees to show some respect for the flag and for the country,” he reasoned. The world of sports absolutely needs more men like Krupinsky to help balance out all the…