In the latest stop on their Olympic gold medal victory tour, Ottawa Senators captain Brady Tkachuk and defenceman Jake Sanderson attended U.S. President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday.

Tkachuk, Sanderson and 15 of their American teammates, each with a gold medal draped over matching Olympic-themed sweaters, stood in the halls of the U.S. Capitol around 9:20 p.m., awaiting the cue for their grand entrance.

“Our country is winning again,” Trump said, about 15 minutes into his speech. “In fact, we’re winning so much that we really don’t know what to do about it. People are asking me, ‘Please, please, please Mr. President, we’re winning too much, we can’t take it anymore. We’re not used to winning in our country until you came along, we’re just always losing, but now we’re winning too much.’ And I say, ‘No, no, no. You’re going to win again. You’re going to win big. You’re going to win bigger than ever. And to prove that point, to prove that point, here with us tonight is a group of winners who just made the entire nation proud. The men’s gold medal Olympic hockey team.”

Walking into the joint session of Congress for their heroes’ welcome, Tkachuk fist pumped the air and chanted “USA! USA! USA” along with the packed house of lawmakers. Sanderson applauded as Trump announced that the women’s team, who also won gold at the 2026 Winter Olympics, would soon meet with him at the White House.

Earlier in the day, 20 players on the men’s U.S. hockey team, including Tkachuk and Sanderson, toured the White House, rubbing elbows with Trump in the Oval Office. The Sens players huddled around the U.S. President for a group photo in the hallowed room.

“It was awesome just to have that opportunity,” Tkachuk told Fox News of the visit. “Just extremely grateful and blessed to be in this position. It almost went by so fast, where you’re just trying to take it all in as best you can. But it truly was an unbelievable experience.”

Since his re-election in 2024, Trump has threatened to use “economic force” to annex Canada. Just over an hour before the president’s address on Tuesday, the official White House account on ‘X’ posted a State of the Union bingo card, including a square that read, “After Olympic hockey loss, Canada becomes 51st state.”

Two days prior, the White House’s official TikTok page posted an AI-generated video that dubbed over a Tkachuk post-game press conference and made it look like the Sens captain said, “They booed our national anthem, so I had to come out and teach those maple-syrup-eating (expletives) a lesson. Canada, we own you, little bro.”

It’s unknown whether Tkachuk and Sanderson will return to Ottawa in time for practice on Wednesday, but both are expected to be in the lineup when the Sens host the Detroit Red Wings on Thursday.