\n United States Olympic women\u2019s hockey team captain Hilary Knight called President Trump\u2019s invitation to the White House \u201ca distasteful joke\u201d on Wednesday during an appearance on ESPN\u2019s SportsCenter.\n <\/p>\n
\n The invite <\/strong>came after Trump extended a welcome to the men\u2019s team via a phone call on Sunday, as celebration ensued in the locker room following their 2-1 gold medal overtime win<\/a> against Canada.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI must tell you, we\u2019re gonna have to bring the women\u2019s team \u2014 you do know that,\u201d Trump said over a speakerphone held by FBI Director Kash Patel<\/a>, who was videoed celebrating with the team.\n <\/p>\n \n Trump said that if the women\u2019s team wasn\u2019t invited, he \u201cprobably would be impeached.\u201d His response was then echoed by laughter from those in the locker room.\n <\/p>\n \n The women\u2019s team earned their third all-time Olympic gold medal after defeating Canada 2-1 in overtime<\/a> at the Milan Cortina Winter Games on Thursday, with Knight scoring the late game-tying goal.\n <\/p>\n \n The women\u2019s team declined their invitation<\/a> to Trump\u2019s State of the Union address due to prior academic and professional commitments.\n <\/p>\n \n In the ESPN interview<\/a>, Knight, a five-time Olympic medalist, said the controversy surrounding Trump\u2019s invite \u201cis overshadowing a lot of the success, the success of just women at the Olympics carrying for Team USA and having amazing gold-medal feats.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n In Sunday\u2019s viral locker room video, several members of the men\u2019s team can be heard laughing at the suggestion that the President could be impeached for not inviting the gold-medal-winning women\u2019s squad.\n <\/p>\n \n The exchange between the men\u2019s players, Trump and Patel, drew significant backlash as the video circulated on social media.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe should\u2019ve reacted differently,\u201d Team USA and Boston Bruins goalie Jeremy Swayman said on Wednesday. \u201cWe are so excited for the women\u2019s team and we have so much respect for the women\u2019s team \u2013 to share that gold medal with them is something that we will forever be grateful for.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n When asked about how the men\u2019s players reacted to the women\u2019s offer visit the White House this week, Knight described the laughter in the locker room as a \u201cquick lapse\u201d in judgment.\n <\/p>\n \n Despite the friction, Knight emphasized her pride in the men\u2019s gold-medal victory, noting that both teams should be celebrating a historic week for American hockey rather than navigating political fallout.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI think the guys were in a tough spot, so I think it\u2019s a shame this storyline and narrative has kind of blown up and is overshadowing that connection and genuine interest in one another and cheering each other on,\u201d Knight said.\n <\/p>\n \n Rapper Flavor Flav, who served as Team USA\u2019s hypeman in Italy, extended his own invitation to the women\u2019s team via social media<\/a> on Monday, calling for \u201ca real celebration\u201d in Las Vegas.\n <\/p>\n \n Knight said she hoped to celebrate the accomplishments of the team in Las Vegas with the Public Enemy star but commitments for players in the PWHL and college teams were preventing an immediate party.\n <\/p>\n \n A contingent of the men\u2019s team, who flew to Washington on a military plane, received six minutes of accolades<\/a> from Trump during the State of the Union address Tuesday night.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cOur country is winning again. In fact, we\u2019re winning so much that we really don\u2019t know what to do about it,\u201d Trump said. \u201cTo prove that point, to prove that perfect 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\n <\/p>\n \n Trump ensured that the women\u2019s team would \u201csoon\u201d be making a trip to Washington during his address to the nation, but Team USA has yet to confirm an upcoming visit\n <\/p>\n \n Jack Hughes<\/a>, who scored the game-winning goal in overtime to secure the gold for the men\u2019s US hockey team, made his highly anticipated return to the New Jersey Devils on Wednesday night, playing against Olympic teammate Tage Thompson and the Buffalo Sabres.\n <\/p>\n \n Both received a rousing ovation from the Prudential Center crowd. Hughes addressed the fans, thanking them for their love and support.\n <\/p>\n \n Following the Devils\u2019 2-1 loss, Hughes addressed the fallout from the last few days, saying he wasn\u2019t surprised at the conversation surrounding the team\u2019s celebrations.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cObviously, there\u2019s so many different people in the country with so many different views. So, no matter what\u2019s going on – someone\u2019s going like it, someone\u2019s not going to like it,\u201d Hughes told reporters.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cFor us, it was about the celebration. Celebrating USA hockey, celebrating our teammates, our group of guys. Like I said, we just had so much fun fun being together and enjoying the moment together.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The 24-year-old described the moment when President Trump called in the locker room when asked if he agreed with the discourse from the women\u2019s team and Swayman earlier in the day.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt is what it is now but we have so much respect for the women\u2019s team. They have so much for us and we\u2019re all just proud Americans and we\u2019re happy that we both swept the Olympics,\u201d Hughes said\n <\/p>\n \n Earlier in the week, Hughes pushed back on the growing political discourse around the events, reiterating that the team are just \u201chockey players\u201d when asked about attending the White House and the State of the Union on Tuesday.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe\u2019re just hockey players, right? So, we did our job. We went over to the Olympics to win a gold medal and that\u2019s what we did. I\u2019ve had the best time of my life celebrating with my teammates that we accomplished our goal and like I said, I\u2019m a hockey player,\u201d Hughes said. \u201cWe\u2019re just so proud to be back in the US and celebrating our gold medal and to do it with our teammates that\u2019s the best part.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Knight characterized the recent controversy as a \u201creally good learning point, to really focus on how we talk about women, not only in sport but in the industry. Women aren\u2019t less than and their achievements shouldn\u2019t be overshadowed by anything else other than how great they are.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n With Knight\u2019s last-gasp equalizer in the Olympic final in Milan, the veteran wrote herself into US hockey history, becoming the women\u2019s all-time Olympic goals and points leader.\n <\/p>\n \n She is set to be back on the ice with her professional team, the PWHL\u2019s Seattle Torrent, on Friday.\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n United States Olympic women\u2019s hockey team captain Hilary Knight called President Trump\u2019s invitation to the White House \u201ca distasteful joke\u201d on Wednesday during an appearance on ESPN\u2019s SportsCenter. The invite came after Trump extended a welcome to the men\u2019s team via a phone call on Sunday, as celebration ensued in the locker room following their … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21898,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Hilary-Knight-calls-President-Trumps-White-House-invite-a-\u2018distasteful.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21897"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21899,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21897\/revisions\/21899"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"President](\"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/hb9etxzxaaetwmk.jpeg\")
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