U.S. men\u2019s hockey stars Jack and Quinn Hughes have acknowledged what Jack called the \u201cbacklash\u201d the team has faced surrounding their post-Olympic call with President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
On the call, which surfaced on social media after the men\u2019s win over Canada in the gold-medal game, Trump invited the men\u2019s team to the State of the Union and the White House, then said he was also \u201cgoing to have to bring the women\u2019s team,\u201d saying if he didn\u2019t, he\u2019d \u201cprobably be impeached.\u201d<\/p>\n
The line was met with laughs by some of the U.S. men, who engaged in celebratory back-and-forth with Trump throughout the call.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are so negative out there and they are trying to find a reason to put people down and make something out of almost nothing,\u201d Jack Hughes told reporters outside a Miami nightclub late Monday night. \u201cI think everyone in that locker room knows how much we support them, how proud we are of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Feb. 19, the U.S. women completed a 7-0 run through the Olympic tournament with an overtime victory of their own against Canada. According to Hughes, after the U.S. men won gold Sunday, the two teams were \u201cin the cafeteria at 3:30 in the morning,\u201d celebrating.<\/p>\n
Earlier on Monday, USA Hockey said the women\u2019s team was \u201cunable to participate\u201d in attending the State of the Union, which takes place in Washington on Tuesday night, \u201cdue to the timing and previously scheduled academic and professional commitments.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Professional Women\u2019s Hockey League, with 16 American players on the U.S. Olympic team spread across five of its eight rosters, resumes its season Thursday. The U.S. women\u2019s Olympic roster also includes seven NCAA players, some of whom are scheduled to play on Friday.<\/p>\n
\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,\u201d USA Hockey said in a statement to The Athletic. \u201cThey were honored to be included and are grateful for the acknowledgment.\u201d<\/p>\n
During an interview on \u201cGood Morning America\u201d on Tuesday alongside Jack, his brother Quinn Hughes, a U.S. defenseman, said they were \u201cexcited\u201d to go to the State of the Union.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s something you don\u2019t get to do (every) Tuesday,\u201d Quinn Hughes said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be special for us.\u201d He added that they were \u201cextremely happy\u201d for the American women\u2019s national team while alluding to \u201ca lot going on social media surrounding our team and their team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier in the interview, Jack Hughes brought up \u201cheadlines about us and the women\u2019s hockey team, and the video,\u201d and once again shared the postgame cafeteria anecdote.<\/p>\n
On the U.S. men\u2019s team\u2019s call with Trump, which was taken in the dressing room by FBI director Kash Patel, players were also invited to the White House on Thursday, one day before the NHL resumes its regular season. Whether that event was scheduled is unknown, but NHL teams with American Olympians on the roster expected those players to travel to Washington for some amount of time before returning to their respective clubs.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s public schedule for Tuesday includes a 12:30 p.m. State of the Union luncheon. His schedule for Wednesday has not yet been released.<\/p>\n
NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly told The Athletic on Monday that players can decide on an individual basis if they want to accept Trump\u2019s invitation and that it\u2019ll be up to their individual teams whether or not to grant permission.<\/p>\n
In Miami, Jack Hughes said the team is \u201csuper excited to go to the White House.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything is so political, we\u2019re athletes, we\u2019re so proud to represent the U.S.,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd when you get the chance to go to the White House and meet the president \u2026 That\u2019s so patriotic.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.S. men\u2019s hockey stars Jack and Quinn Hughes have acknowledged what Jack called the \u201cbacklash\u201d the team has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470002,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[5,54125,4,2602],"class_list":{"0":"post-470001","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"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116127286736420950","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470001","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=470001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}