U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra wrote a letter to The Globe and Mail seeking an apology for the characterization of the U.S. men’s hockey team in a recent column by Cathal Kelly after the team’s recent visit to Washington.Justin Tang/The Canadian Press
The United States ambassador to Canada has asked The Globe and Mail to apologize for a column that he said mocked the “intelligence, education, and character” of the U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team players who attended the State of the Union address last week in Washington, D.C.
Pete Hoekstra said the column by Cathal Kelly, published online last Wednesday and in print on Thursday under the headline “The State of the Union was a zoo – and Team USA the monkeys,” left him disappointed and outraged.
“While we respect press freedom and expect robust commentary on matters of public interest, this article crosses the line from legitimate criticism into gratuitous insult,” Mr. Hoekstra wrote in a letter to The Globe’s editor-in-chief, David Walmsley. “The headline alone – comparing American athletes to monkeys in a zoo – is demeaning and unworthy of a publication of The Globe and Mail’s stature.”
Mr. Hoekstra added that the column’s “substance is equally troubling,” as it suggested the players were not avid readers or independent thinkers.
The letter was sent on Saturday, Feb. 28, hours after the U.S. began bombing Iran.
Opinion: The State of the Union was a zoo – and Team USA the monkeys
Mr. Kelly, one of the most prominent sportswriters in Canada, wrote the column after more than three days of controversy had enveloped the U.S. men following their gold medal win over Team Canada at the end of the Milan Cortina Games. Some of the assertions, such as hockey culture’s pack mentality and players’ lack of interest in literature, are common fare for Mr. Kelly.
During a boozy locker room celebration attended by FBI Director Kash Patel, U.S. President Donald Trump had spoken with the players by phone and invited them to visit Washington, adding with a chuckle that he would need to invite the gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic women’s hockey team as well or he “probably would be impeached,” spurring laughter in the room. A video of the call caught someone off-camera yelling, “Close the northern border!”
The women’s team declined the president’s invitation, citing “previously scheduled academic and professional commitments.” Captain Hilary Knight called Mr. Trump’s comment “distasteful and unfortunate.”
The locker room episode angered many fans across both the U.S. and Canada, casting a shadow over the U.S. men’s first hockey gold in 46 years. Canadian fans in particular were disappointed when some of the Americans who play for Canadian NHL teams went on to participate in a display of support for a president who has repeatedly threatened Canada’s sovereignty.
Members of the United States Olympic men’s hockey team, including Winnipeg Jets goaltender Connor Hellebuyck (front), received criticism for attending the State of the Union address in Washington.Kenny Holston/The New York Times/Reuters
Mr. Kelly noted that, while the hockey players are normally the stars of the games they play, in going to the State of the Union, “they were props for the actual star and got nothing for it but grief.”
For some, that grief continued to reverberate even after the Washington visit. Ottawa Senators’ Brady Tkachuk was forced to distance himself from an AI-generated TikTok video published by the White House in which he appears to issue a foul-mouthed insult of Canadians.
“I would never say that,” Mr. Tkachuk said last Thursday, during his first media availability after the Olympics. “That’s not who I am, so I guess I don’t like that video because that would never come out of my mouth, and never had that thought.”
Over the weekend, the efforts at reputational repair continued. The golden goal scorer, Jack Hughes, and his brother Quinn appeared on Saturday Night Live with Ms. Knight and Megan Keller, who scored the game-tying and game-winning goals, respectively, in their own gold-medal match against Team Canada. Ms. Knight quipped that, “It was going to be just us, but we thought we’d invite the guys, too,” while the Hughes brothers smiled good-naturedly at the joke.
In a statement, Mr. Walmsley said of Mr. Kelly’s column, “Strong opinion is a hallmark of independent journalism and sometimes along the way that leads to reader disappointment and offence.”
The Globe sent Mr. Hoekstra’s office a series of questions on Tuesday, including what consequences he envisioned if The Globe does not publish an apology, and when the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa had last requested an apology from a Canadian media outlet.
The embassy declined to comment.
USA Hockey did not respond to a request for comment about Mr. Hoekstra’s letter or the column.
Mr. Kelly, The Globe’s chief sports columnist since 2014, has been nominated four times for a National Newspaper Award and was part of the team that won a breaking news NNA in 2025 for coverage of the Canada Soccer drone spying scandal. Mr. Kelly won the 2019 Stephen Leacock Award for Humour for his memoir, Boy Wonders.