{"id":468972,"date":"2026-02-24T02:24:59","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T02:24:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/468972\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T02:24:59","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T02:24:59","slug":"u-s-womens-hockey-team-will-not-attend-state-of-the-union-after-trump-invitation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/468972\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. women\u2019s hockey team will not attend State of the Union after Trump invitation"},"content":{"rendered":"

The United States women\u2019s hockey team, which won gold at the Olympics in Milan last week, will not attend President Donald Trump\u2019s State of the Union address in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday night, according to a statement.<\/p>\n

The statement, issued by USA Hockey, read: \u201cWe are sincerely grateful for the invitation extended to our gold medal-winning U.S. Women\u2019s Hockey Team and deeply appreciate the recognition of their extraordinary achievement. Due to the timing and previously scheduled academic and professional commitments following the Games, the athletes are unable to participate. They were honored to be included and are grateful for the acknowledgment.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. men\u2019s team, which also won gold in Milan, also received an invitation to the speech from Trump, and to a White House event on Wednesday<\/a>. Team members arrived in Miami on Monday, and Matthew Tkachuk told reporters there that the team would \u201cspend the day here today and then off to D.C. tomorrow and I\u2019ll be back in Lauderdale on Wednesday.\u201d A Columbus Blue Jackets team source told The Athletic that Zach Werenski also would be in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Asked whether the trip will include the State of the Union speech, Tkachuk said, \u201cI don\u2019t know exactly what our plan is yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Winnipeg Jets coach Scott Arniel, asked on Monday about the status of American Olympians Connor Hellebuyck and Kyle Connor, said: \u201cWith the White House thing, we\u2019re still waiting for information on KC and Helle on that one. That sounds like it\u2019s a go for (Tuesday) night. We\u2019re still getting the particulars on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump, on a call Sunday to a raucous locker-room celebration by the U.S. men \u2014 which included FBI director Kash Patel \u2014 invited that team to both the State of the Union and the White House. The U.S. men had just won gold with 2-1 overtime win over Canada. Trump, in a video of the call posted to social media, mentioned the women\u2019s team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI must tell you, we\u2019re going to have to bring the women\u2019s team, you do know that,\u201d he said, via the speaker on what appeared to be Patel\u2019s phone. Trump also said that he\u2019d \u201cprobably be impeached\u201d if he didn\u2019t invite the women\u2019s team. The line was met with laughs by some of the U.S. men, who\u2019d crowded around Patel and engaged in celebratory back-and-forth with Trump throughout the call.<\/p>\n

Three days earlier, the U.S. women completed a 7-0 run through the Olympic tournament with a come-from-behind, 2-1 overtime victory over Canada. They haven\u2019t lost a game in a major international competition since the 2024 Women\u2019s World Championship gold-medal game, which Canada won 6-5 in overtime.<\/p>\n

The Professional Women\u2019s Hockey League, with 16 American players spread across six rosters, resumes its season on Thursday. The U.S. women\u2019s roster also includes seven NCAA players, some of whom are scheduled to play on Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The United States women\u2019s hockey team, which won gold at the Olympics in Milan last week, will not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[5,54125,4,2602,1581,54279],"class_list":{"0":"post-468972","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-mens-olympic-ice-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-olympics","12":"tag-womens-hockey","13":"tag-womens-olympic-ice-hockey"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116123239935822547","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}