{"id":473370,"date":"2026-02-26T17:29:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T17:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/473370\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T17:29:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T17:29:10","slug":"matthew-tkachuk-says-he-has-respect-for-u-s-womens-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/473370\/","title":{"rendered":"Matthew Tkachuk says he has respect for U.S. women’s team"},"content":{"rendered":"

FORT LAUDERDALE \u2014 Soon after the USA men\u2019s hockey team sparked celebrations across the country with Jack Hughes\u2019 gold-medal-winning goal against Canada on Sunday<\/a>, the team was engulfed in a political controversy.<\/p>\n

FBI Director Kash Patel was seen on video celebrating in the locker room with the team, and Panthers star Matthew Tkachuk draped his medal around Patel\u2019s neck. The U.S. men\u2019s team came under additional fire when video leaked of the team listening to President Donald Trump make a joke<\/a> at the expense of the women\u2019s national team, which also beat Canada in overtime to win the gold medal<\/a>, while on the phone with the men\u2019s team. Trump said he would need to invite the women\u2019s teams to the White House, as well as the men\u2019s team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI must tell you, we\u2019re going to have to bring the women\u2019s team, you do know that,\u201d Trump said as some of the American players laughed.<\/p>\n

Trump said if he did not invite the women\u2019s team, \u201cI do believe I probably would be impeached.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Thursday morning, Tkachuk, the only Panthers player on the U.S. team, said the two teams became very close while in Milan.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody saw what type of relationship we had with the women\u2019s team and other athletes, really, in the village,\u201d Tkachuk said. \u201cOur two teams were so close. We watched other events together. We went and supported. We love the women\u2019s team, and the women\u2019s team loved us. And we\u2019re so proud that we had a clean sweep of gold medals. And just so much respect for them and the other athletes.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I think the narrative that we weren\u2019t rooting for each other, whatever the narrative is, is so untrue,\u201d Tkachuk\u00a0 explained. \u201cWe were so close with that team, and the fact that both our teams were able to do that is what should be talked about, and it\u2019s really important.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we have a lot of respect for them and all the other athletes and literally had the best time celebrating with them after and throughout the tournament. There\u2019s some relationships that I\u2019ll remember forever and consider a few of them on the team that I hung out with \u2014 a majority \u2014 really good friends. So I think that\u2019s all just crazy talk and taking away from what really mattered. \u201d<\/p>\n

USA women\u2019s team captain Hilary Knight said Wednesday that she thought the President\u2019s comment was \u201cdistasteful,\u201d and American goalie Jeremy Swayman said, \u201cWe should have reacted differently\u201d<\/a> to the comment on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just thought the joke was distasteful and unfortunate,\u201d Knight said Wednesday<\/a>. \u201cAnd, I think just the way women are represented, it\u2019s a great teaching point and really shines light on how women should be championed for their amazing feats.\u201d<\/p>\n

The women\u2019s team declined an invitation to the White House,<\/a> while many members of the men\u2019s team \u2014 including Tkachuk \u2014 visited Tuesday and attended the State of the Union address.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe men\u2019s and the women\u2019s team did it together,\u201d Knight said. \u201cAnd, that\u2019s super special. It\u2019s never been done in our program\u2019s history. It\u2019s something we\u2019re extremely proud about. But these women are amazing. And whatever\u2019s going on should never outshine or minimize their work and our success on the world stage.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT LAUDERDALE \u2014 Soon after the USA men\u2019s hockey team sparked celebrations across the country with Jack Hughes\u2019…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5102],"tags":[62,57,5141,5,1180,4,63,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-473370","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida-panthers","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-florida-panthers","10":"tag-floridapanthers","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-latest-headlines","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-panthers","15":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116138119419402297","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473370","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=473370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}