{"id":470661,"date":"2026-02-25T04:46:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T04:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/470661\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T04:46:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T04:46:12","slug":"u-s-mens-hockey-team-honored-at-state-of-the-union-trump-says-womens-team-coming-to-white-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/470661\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. men\u2019s hockey team honored at State of the Union; Trump says women\u2019s team coming to White House"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Members of the gold medal-winning United States men\u2019s Olympic hockey team, invited by President Donald Trump to the State of the Union, were recognized during the speech Tuesday night and received a standing ovation.<\/p>\n<p>During his acknowledgement of the team, which lasted six minutes, Trump also made reference to the gold medal-winning U.S. women\u2019s team, which he said \u201cwill soon be coming to the White House.\u201d Trump invited the women\u2019s team to the State of the Union, but the team decided not to attend, citing in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/7066477\/2026\/02\/23\/olympics-hockey-trump-state-of-the-union\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a statement to The Athletic<\/a> \u201cthe timing and previously scheduled academic and professional commitments.\u201d A spokesperson for USA Hockey did not immediately respond to a message asking about the plans for the women\u2019s team.<\/p>\n<p>After the men\u2019s team of 25 players arrived in Miami from Milan at the end of the Olympics, 20 of them made the trip to Washington, D.C., and attended an event in the Oval Office on Tuesday with Trump. Not present were Kyle Connor, Jake Guentzel, Jackson LaCombe, Brock Nelson and Jake Oettinger. Three more players \u2014 team captain Auston Matthews, Clayton Keller and Dylan Larkin \u2014 were not seen during the speech.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Good as GOLD \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8\ud83e\udd47<\/p>\n<p>We are honored to welcome our men\u2019s U.S. hockey team to the Capitol ahead of <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/POTUS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@POTUS<\/a>\u2019s State of the Union address.<\/p>\n<p>We are so proud of their historic achievement and all they represent to our great nation. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/HDZ4JYaZSl\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/HDZ4JYaZSl<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SpeakerJohnson\/status\/2026469162512470060?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">February 25, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Trump also announced during the speech that he planned to award goaltender Connor Hellebuyck the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the two highest civilian awards in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve never seen a goaltender play as well as goalie Connor Hellebuyck,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n<p>At the 12-minute mark of the speech, Trump referenced the players for the first time, two days after their 2-1 overtime victory over Canada for the United States\u2019 first gold medal in men\u2019s hockey since 1980.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur country is winning again,\u201d Trump said. \u201cIn fact, we\u2019re winning so much that we really don\u2019t know what to do about it. People are asking me \u2014 please, please, please Mr. President, we\u2019re winning too much. We can\u2019t take it anymore. We\u2019re not used to winning in our country. Until you came along, we\u2019re just always losing, but now, we\u2019re winning too much.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd I say, no no no. You\u2019re going to win again. You\u2019re going to win big. You\u2019re gonna win bigger than ever, and to prove that point \u2014 to prove that point \u2014 here with us tonight is a group of winners who just made the entire nation proud: the men\u2019s gold medal Olympic hockey team.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With that cue, 17 players entered the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol from the upper concourse, where, clad in matching Olympic sweaters, they stood in two separate aisles for several minutes as they received a loud ovation and chants of \u201cUSA.\u201d One group was led by brothers Jack and Quinn Hughes, the other by Matthew Tkachuk and Hellebuyck.<\/p>\n<p>Trump said he asked Hellebuyck\u2019s teammates if he should receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which has been awarded to an average of 11 people per year since its introduction in 1963. During Trump\u2019s first term, he awarded the medal 24 times overall, including 11 times to athletes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI said, \u2018I\u2019m not giving it if anyone goes no,\u2019\u201d Trump said. \u201cAnd every single one of them rapidly put up their hand. So I want to thank you all. What a special job you did. What special champions you are.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Members of the gold medal-winning United States men\u2019s Olympic hockey team, invited by President Donald Trump to the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470662,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[5,54125,4,2602],"class_list":{"0":"post-470661","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\/116129456911919248","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470661","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=470661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}