{"id":312556,"date":"2026-02-27T06:26:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T06:26:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/312556\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T06:26:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T06:26:15","slug":"hilary-knight-wont-let-trumps-distasteful-joke-ruin-olympic-gold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/312556\/","title":{"rendered":"Hilary Knight won’t let Trump’s ‘distasteful joke’ ruin Olympic gold"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

U.S. women\u2019s hockey star Hilary Knight<\/a> wasn\u2019t a fan of a comment that President Trump<\/a> made about her team days after it claimed Olympic gold at the Milan-Cortina Games<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it was sort of a distasteful joke, and unfortunately, that is overshadowing a lot of the success of just women at the Olympics carrying for Team USA and having amazing gold medal feats,\u201d Knight said Wednesday during an appearance on ESPN\u2019s \u201cSportsCenter.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

On Feb. 19, the U.S. defeated Canada 2-1 in overtime<\/a> for a third gold medal in women\u2019s hockey; the team won gold in 1998 and 2018. Three days later, the U.S. men\u2019s hockey team also won gold by defeating Canada 2-1 in overtime. <\/p>\n

After the men\u2019s game, Trump addressed the U.S. players by phone in the locker room, extending an invitation for them to attend his State of the Union address two days later and adding a seemingly dismissive comment about the women\u2019s team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI must tell you, we\u2019re gonna have to bring the women\u2019s team, you do know that,\u201d Trump said during the call. By not inviting the other American gold medal hockey team, the president said, \u201cI do believe I\u2019d probably be impeached.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s comment was met with loud laughter in the locker room. But Knight said she and her teammates aren\u2019t spending much time thinking about the remark.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just trying to focus on celebrating the women in our room, the extraordinary efforts and continue to celebrate three gold medals in program history, as well as the double gold for both men\u2019s and women\u2019s at the same time and really not detract from that with a distasteful joke,\u201d Knight, who has won two gold medals and three silvers in five Olympics with the U.S. team, said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was unfortunate, but yeah, I think really focusing on celebrating all great things that have come out of the Olympics and feeling the love and the support and getting back in our respective communities and sharing this journey with them, that\u2019s what it\u2019s all about and that\u2019s what makes this moment super special.\u201d<\/p>\n

The majority of the men\u2019s team met with Trump at the White House on Tuesday before being honored at the State of the Union address, where they received a bipartisan standing ovation lasting about two minutes. During his address, Trump announced that goalie Connor Hellebuyck will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom<\/a>, the nation\u2019s highest civilian honor.<\/p>\n

The women\u2019s team confirmed in a statement Monday that it declined an invitation to attend the State of the Union address \u201cdue to the timing and previously scheduled academic and professional commitments following the Games.\u201d Trump said during the address that the women\u2019s team would be visiting the White House \u201cvery soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amid the controversy over Trump\u2019s locker room comment, hip-hop legend Flavor Flav<\/a> invited the women\u2019s hockey team to a special event<\/a> celebrating their achievement in Las Vegas. He later<\/a> extended the invitation to \u201cALL Female US Olympians and Paralympian medalists\u201d for the \u201cShe\u2019s Got Game Weekend<\/a>\u201d from July 16-19.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was definitely super special, after everything that\u2019s been going around online, to have someone step up like that and really go to bat for us,\u201d forward Alex Carpenter said<\/a> of Flav\u2019s invitation during a Seattle Torrent news conference on Wednesday. \u201cI think we\u2019re fully gonna take advantage of that and go have some fun and celebrate like we deserve to.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S.men\u2019s team member Jeremy Swayman told reporters at Boston Bruins practice Wednesday that the laughter heard in the locker room following Trump\u2019s comment does not reflect how the players feel about the women\u2019s team and its accomplishments.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, we should have reacted differently,\u201d Swayman said. \u201cWe are so excited for the women\u2019s team, we have so much respect for the women\u2019s team, and to share that gold medal with them is something that we\u2019re forever grateful for. And now that we\u2019re home we get to share that together forever and see the incredible support we have from the USA and share in this incredible gold medal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jack Hughes<\/a>, who scored the winning goal for the U.S. men against Canada, said the men\u2019s players were caught \u201cin the moment\u201d during the president\u2019s call that came during the middle of their victory celebration.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously it is what it is now, but we have so much respect for the women\u2019s team and they have so much respect for us,\u201d Hughes told reporters after his New Jersey Devils\u2019 2-1 loss to the Buffalo Sabres on Wednesday night. \u201cWe\u2019re all just proud Americans and we\u2019re happy that we both swept the Olympics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knight said she thinks there is \u201ca genuine level of support and respect\u201d between the U.S. men\u2019s and women\u2019s players and called the moment a \u201csort of a quick lapse\u201d by the men\u2019s players.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the guys were in a tough spot,\u201d Knight said. \u201cSo it\u2019s a shame that this storyline and narrative is kind of blown up and overshadowing that connection and genuine interest in one another and cheering one another on. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think this is just a really good learning point to really focus on, you know, how we talk about women, not only in sport, but in industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Discussion about the call wasn\u2019t the only criticism of the White House from the world of Team USA hockey.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, men\u2019s player Brady Tkachuk said he was unhappy that the White House shared a video on TikTok that made it appear he disparaged Canadians while using profanity. The video, which also features hockey footage and part of an interview with Hughes, carries a note saying it \u201ccontains AI-generated media.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s clearly fake because it\u2019s not my voice and not my lips moving. \u2026 I know that those words would never come out of my mouth,\u201d Tkachuk told reporters. <\/p>\n

He added: \u201cI would never say that. That\u2019s not who I am.\u201d<\/p>\n

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Associated Press.<\/p>\n

Tkachuk also denied being the voice heard shouting \u201cclose the northern border\u201d during the team\u2019s call with Trump.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.S. women\u2019s hockey star Hilary Knight wasn\u2019t a fan of a comment that President Trump made about her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[4943,85,23786,46,136326,156520,77250,105,3878,118408,156519,627,4374,156517,156518,7128,7421,5175],"class_list":["post-312556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-comment","tag-il","tag-invitation","tag-israel","tag-knight","tag-locker-room","tag-player","tag-sports","tag-team","tag-team-usa","tag-third-gold-medal","tag-trump","tag-u-s","tag-u-s-man","tag-union-address","tag-wednesday","tag-white-house","tag-woman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}