{"id":476337,"date":"2026-02-28T03:24:22","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T03:24:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/476337\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T03:24:22","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T03:24:22","slug":"winning-olympic-gold-in-hockey-led-to-different-kinds-of-celebrations-for-u-s-men-and-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/476337\/","title":{"rendered":"Winning Olympic gold in hockey led to different kinds of celebrations for U.S. men and women"},"content":{"rendered":"

The United States swept the hockey gold medals at the Winter Olympics<\/a> for the first time, beating Canada 2-1 in overtime in both the men\u2019s and women\u2019s tournaments and finishing the tournaments unbeaten.<\/p>\n

It set off a celebration that quickly became political:<\/p>\n

The celebrations<\/p>\n

\u2014 Women\u2019s team: The players largely steered away from politics. Many said they failed to notice Vice President JD Vance<\/a>, his family and guests \u2014 and large security detail \u2014 attending two preliminary round games where they sat directly opposite the U.S. bench. They celebrated Team USA\u2019s third Olympic gold medal in women\u2019s hockey win by wrapping themselves in the stars and stripes following Megan Keller\u2019s overtime goal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re America\u2019s team in the best way and through positivity and trying to inspire through sport,\u201d captain Hilary Knight said. \u201cAnd whatever political climate is going on, we\u2019re just trying to have a positive impact through our play, and obviously show up and represent our country to the best of our ability, because we are proud Americans and there\u2019s great unity that we can find through sport together.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n AP AUDIO: A golden sweep by Team USA in Olympic hockey led to celebrations that got complicated and political\n <\/p>\n

An Olympic gold medal-winning NHL star claims the White House doctored a video to show him insulting Canadians. Correspondent Gethin Coolbaugh reports.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Men\u2019s team: The celebration following Jack Hughes\u2019 goal<\/a> was dramatic and engaging, with Hughes displaying a toothless grin, and others paying tribute to late player Johnny Gaudreau, who died in August 2024. The men were joined in the locker room by FBI Director Kash Patel and got a speakerphone call from President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

White House invitations<\/p>\n

\u2014 Men\u2019s team: During his call, Trump invited the team to attend his State of the Union address two days later before adding he would have to invite the women\u2019s team as well. He later said if he didn\u2019t invite the women, he\u2019d risk being impeached, which led to the players laughing at a comment many saw as sexist. Most of the team joined Trump at the White House on Tuesday and made a big entrance at the Capitol, where they were cheered with shouts of \u201cU-S-A, U-S-A!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 Women\u2019s team: The team didn\u2019t receive a congratulatory call from the president, and didn\u2019t learn of the White House invitation until hours after the men\u2019s game ended. The team politely declined<\/a> the invitation, citing travel logistics put in place days earlier. Trump said he expected the women to visit the White House soon, but there is no timetable, and the earliest the team could schedule a visit is after the PWHL season ends in late May. Most of the team is expected to attend a \u201cShe Got Game\u201d celebration being hosted by rapper Flavor Flav<\/a> in Las Vegas in mid-July.<\/p>\n

The flights home<\/p>\n

\u2014 Women\u2019s team: Traveling commercial and paid for by USA Hockey, the women were scheduled to fly though New York City but were re-routed to Atlanta due to bad weather. The women were given the choice to attend the State of the Union speech, but declined as they were eager to return home. The women spent an extra week in Milan because their tournament opened earlier. The PWHL season resumed Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Men\u2019s team: The players flew by charter \u2014 paid for by the NHL and NHL Players\u2019 Association \u2014 direct to Miami. The men were also flown on an Air Force plane to the Washington area for the White House visit. The NHL season resumed Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The fallout<\/p>\n

The men have spent much of the week answering questions about why some of them laughed during Trump\u2019s joke. Many said they were caught up in the celebration. Boston Bruins goalie Jeremy Swayman said they \u201cshould have reacted differently\u201d to Trump\u2019s remarks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just thought the joke was distasteful and unfortunate<\/a>,\u201d Knight said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Still, by all accounts the two teams became close in the athletes\u2019 village and supported each other\u2019s runs to gold. They have emphasized that this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe watched other events together,\u201d said Florida Panthers star Matthew Tkachuk. \u201cWe went and supported them. We loved the women\u2019s team. 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

The TikTok<\/p>\n

A doctored TikTok video<\/a> posted on the White House account showed U.S. player Brady Tkachuk appearing to disparage Canadians. Tkachuk, Matthew\u2019s brother who plays in Canada\u2019s capital of Ottawa, said the audio attributed to him was fake and said he was disappoitned by the post, which carried a note saying it contained AI-generated media.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not in control of any of those accounts,\u201d he said. \u201cI know that those words would never come out of my mouth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tkachuk also denied being the voice heard shouting \u201cclose the northern border\u201d during Team USA\u2019s call with Trump. It is not clear who did.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s next<\/p>\n

\u2014 Men\u2019s team: It\u2019s back to the NHL schedule<\/a>, playoff races and rejoining many of the teammates they played against in Milan. Though Matthew Tkachuk brought his gold medal to practice, he said he took a low-key approach to not show it off too much so not to offend his Canadian teammates.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Women\u2019s team: The PWHL schedule resumed after a month-long Olympic break, while the seven U.S. college players prepare for their respective conference playoffs. The PWHL is enjoying a major post-Games boost<\/a>, the first since the league was established three years ago.<\/p>\n

The league reported its two biggest days of in-season home venue ticket sales on Feb. 24 and 25. Merchandise sales in February jumped by 101% compared with the first two months of the season. The league\u2019s 61 Olympians gained 760,000 more followers to their combined social media accounts and the league reported a 200% increase in YouTube video views. <\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP Olympic coverage: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The United States swept the hockey gold medals at the Winter Olympics for the first time, beating Canada…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":476338,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[377],"tags":[46305,3189,35597,19,23,8339,3137,5,1272,39440,156,3265,21619,94,54880,292,5966,15262,72,333,43,46985,25639],"class_list":{"0":"post-476337","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-2026-milan-cortina-olympic-games","9":"tag-2026-winter-olympics","10":"tag-air-force-falcons","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-flavor-flav","14":"tag-hilary-knight","15":"tag-hockey","16":"tag-jack-hughes","17":"tag-jd-vance","18":"tag-jeremy-swayman","19":"tag-johnny-gaudreau","20":"tag-kash-patel","21":"tag-matthew-tkachuk","22":"tag-megan-keller","23":"tag-nhl-hockey","24":"tag-olympic-games","25":"tag-olympic-hockey","26":"tag-ottawa","27":"tag-politics","28":"tag-sports","29":"tag-united-states-olympic-team","30":"tag-winter-olympic-games"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116146121689173586","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476337","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=476337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}