Yo, Angela, you're fired

It took 10 weeks before Donald Trump was compelled to pull the trigger and banish three-time U.S. women's Olympic hockey team star Angela Ruggiero from NBC's "The Apprentice: Los Angeles" on Sunday's episode after the former Simi Valley native was the project manager on a task that fell so flat, Trump likened it to a hockey team getting thumped 7-0.
Ruggiero left the show in tears, the leader of her four-female Team Kinetic that couldn't generate as much money as the competing Team Arrow in a contest to sell admission tickets to Universal Studios.
From a starting field of 18 contestants, Ruggiero survived 10 firings before she was seriously in the line of fire. She had been on losing teams in the past but, as Trump admitted, she kept "staying under the radar."
Not this time. After Kinetic raised $24,000 in sales compared to $31,000 by Arrow, Ruggiero tried to claim Arrow's tactics were unethical and didn't represent Universal Studios as well as her team did.
She also tried to pin a "flawed concept" on new teammate Nicole. When Trump continued to ask her to make a case for her avoiding a firing, it wasn't compelling enough.
"My star, my Olympian, this is terrible," Trump said in the boardroom.
"I'm a scapegoat," Ruggiero said.
"I'm trying to keep you on as a great American," he said. "I feel guilty to have to fire you."
As Ruggiero wiped the tears away and entered the limo for the ride into the night at the end of the show, she summed up her experience:
"As an Olympic gold medalist, and a silver and bronze medalists, it always hurts to lose. Tonight, I didn't win. I learned so much in the process. And when you lose, you actually learn more about yourself. I won a gold, but I learned more and grew more when I won a silver and a bronze. So, I'm OK."