initially responded<\/a> that critics \u201care trying to find a reason to put people down.\u201d Matthews said he doesn\u2019t \u201clike to get political or get into that kind of stuff\u201d and said he and his teammates have \u201cnothing but love and respect for the women\u2019s team.\u201d<\/p>\nHere\u2019s a sampling of how other players responded when asked about various topics:<\/p>\n
On laughing at Trump\u2019s comment about inviting the women\u2019s team<\/p>\n
Kyle Connor: \u201cHonestly, no, I don\u2019t really have any thoughts on it. There\u2019s so many things happening, where you just won the gold medal, and things are going on. So I don\u2019t really remember what he said. It was such a whirlwind, just celebrating with teammates.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jackson LaCombe: \u201cIt was kind of (Trump) being funny and whatever it was. We just want to represent our country. I know (the women\u2019s team) did, too. We\u2019re really cool with them, too. It was really important to us and to them. That\u2019s kind of the big thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Matthews: \u201cIt was unfortunate. We love the women\u2019s team. We support them. The night we won the gold medal, we were hanging out in the dining hall until like three, four in the morning. It\u2019s unfortunate that occurred. We have nothing but love and respect for the women\u2019s team and what they were able to accomplish. And it\u2019s amazing that the men\u2019s and women\u2019s ice hockey teams are both bringing home gold medals for the United States of America. And I think that should be talked about more than the other. But we\u2019re extremely proud of them and happy for them and we support them 100 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Swayman: \u201cWe should have reacted differently. We are so excited for the women\u2019s team. We have so much respect for the women\u2019s team. To share that gold medal with them is something we\u2019re forever grateful for. Now that we\u2019re home, we get to share that together forever and see the incredible support we have from the USA, and share this incredible gold medal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tage Thompson: \u201cI think, in the moment, you\u2019re just in the locker room celebrating and you\u2019re just excited that there\u2019s people that are influential in this country that want to be a part of it, that are watching you play. You know, we\u2019re all athletes, we love the country. The fact that there are people that are high up in the country that make decisions that are watching the game and want to be a part of it and celebrate, because that\u2019s at the end of the day what it was, a celebration of the country. I think that\u2019s why we were so excited.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the political discourse after the victory<\/p>\n
J.T. Miller: \u201cI don\u2019t follow all the noise on the outside. I mean, I\u2019m not even on \u2014 I don\u2019t have the internet right now, basically. So, we just enjoyed ourselves. \u2026 We\u2019re very proud to be Americans. We came back with a gold medal, and that\u2019s the reason we went there. We feel really proud and lucky to have all the opportunities we\u2019ve had over the last couple of days.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jaccob Slavin: \u201cI think when you get invited to the White House, regardless of who the president is, not everyone gets that opportunity and the privilege to be able to go and take part in so much history that has taken part at the White House and in Washington, D.C. So it was a privilege to be able to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thompson: \u201cI think maybe when you\u2019re at the center, you might not know as much of the stuff that\u2019s going on. You know, at the end of the day, we\u2019re Americans and we set out to accomplish something that was very difficult to do and we did it. And you know, we\u2019re obviously going to enjoy that. Like I said before, we\u2019re very proud to represent this country. It\u2019s a huge honor to wear those colors, and I don\u2019t think anyone on that team\u2019s going to shy away from any sort of criticism. Unfortunately, in today\u2019s world, everyone has their own opinions, and I think that\u2019s what makes this country so great is we can all have different opinions and live our lives and be different. So that\u2019s kind of what I see there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vincent Trocheck: \u201cIt\u2019s sad that it\u2019s getting politicized the way it is. We\u2019re all very proud to be Americans, and we were all so proud to go over there and win a gold medal. We went over there with a job, and it was to win gold and do it for our country and for everybody back here, and we were able to do that. It\u2019s sad that it automatically gets turned into something political when all we really wanted to do was represent everybody in here and everybody in our country as well as we could.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the White House visit and State of the Union<\/p>\n
Slavin: \u201cIt was just a cool experience to be able to be in the White House. Not a lot of people get to do that, so to be able to be there and do it was really cool. \u2026 It\u2019s cool to see the history and read some of the history about the presidents on the walls. It\u2019s a really cool place to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Swayman: \u201cIt was an incredible honor. We all were there to represent our country, celebrate a gold medal for the United States. That was something we really embodied and we were really grateful to be a part of.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thompson: \u201cEveryone in that locker room is a patriot. We love the country. Anytime you put on that jersey, it\u2019s the best feeling in the world representing your country and playing for the men and women who fought and serve for your country. We get to enjoy such great lives here, and it\u2019s because of those men and women. I couldn\u2019t be more proud to be an American and do it with the group of guys that we had. Obviously, going to the White House is such an honor. It was a very cool experience and something that I\u2019ll probably never get to do again.\u201d<\/p>\n
On players skipping the Washington, D.C. trip or speech<\/p>\n
Connor: \u201cIt\u2019s a big second half (of the NHL season), so I just wanted to make sure I was ready.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jake Guentzel: \u201cIt was just kind of a timing thing for me and my family. (I was) definitely not denying the request to go. It was obviously a dream come true to go; I was fortunate to go in 2017 (with Pittsburgh) when Trump was in office. Just thought with the games, three in four (days), we\u2019ve got a lot of games coming up the rest of the year, it\u2019s gonna be a tough schedule. So, two weeks of Olympic break, thought it would be good just to kind of come home, rest and recover, and try to spend some time with my family before we get going. So that\u2019s where I\u2019m at with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
LaCombe: \u201cObviously, it was a huge honor to be invited there by our president. For me, it was just so special to love our country. I love whoever is in office. It was such an honor, but I just wanted to be back here for the game, and it was a tight window, so I couldn\u2019t really make it work. That\u2019s the only reason why. I just want to be ready to go back with these guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jake Oettinger: \u201cI think, first of all, getting invited to go to the White House is a tremendous honor. I had basically been living in Italy for a month. I have a huge stretch run. I wasn\u2019t playing much (at the Olympics). I wanted to come back and get my game ready to go, and I also have a 3-month-old baby at home. Been traveling the world. So that was kind of what went into that, but I think those guys had a great time there, and that was why I didn\u2019t go.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A significant amount of excitement and controversy followed the United States men\u2019s hockey team after its gold-medal-winning performance…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":472317,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,54125,4,2602],"class_list":{"0":"post-472316","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-mens-olympic-ice-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-olympics"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116134963040000735","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472316","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=472316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}