Editorial: Nothing says happy International Women’s Day like a congratulatory call from the U.S. president (to the men’s hockey team)
Team USA's women's hockey team was the subject of a distasteful joke from President Donald Trump in February. (Diego Minor Martínez)
Late last month, the U.S. women’s Olympic hockey team declined President Donald Trump’s invitation to his State of the Union address.
This happened shortly after the president called the U.S. men’s hockey team during their locker room celebrations after defeating Canada to win gold at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Milan, Italy.
The women’s team also earned gold, marking the third time Team USA won since women’s ice hockey was added to the Winter Olympics program in 1998. The last time the women’s team won gold was in 2018, while the last time the men had done so was in 1980.
A video showed some U.S. men’s team players laughing after Trump joked about having to invite the women’s team to his speech out of fear of being impeached. He invited the players as guests to his address, which took place on Feb. 24.
While all but five players on the men’s team attended the address, the women’s team declined the invitation due to scheduling issues.
“The players travelled commercially and returned to North America late Monday evening, well after the men, who travelled on a charter flight paid for by the NHL and NHL Players’ Association,” CBC News reported.
Some laughs and a pity invite later, Hilary Knight, captain of both the U.S. national women’s hockey team and the PWHL’s Seattle Torrent, called the joke “distasteful” in an interview with ESPN’s “SportsCenter” show, adding that it’s not her responsibility to explain others’ behaviour.
Brady Tkachuk, U.S. men’s national team player and Ottawa Senators captain, said “I don’t really have an answer” when pressed about why the men’s team was laughing along with Trump.
“Honestly, it was just a whirlwind of a moment that you can’t really control what somebody says,” Tkachuk added. “I guess I was caught off guard a little bit.”
This “controversy” highlights something bleak and not just within the world of sports. Women still have to fight twice as hard for equal respect compared to their male counterparts — if we can call them that.
A moment of national pride for both teams turned into a struggle for equal respect — all because of one comment.
On Feb. 28, brothers and U.S. men’s hockey teammates Quinn and Jack Hughes appeared as guests on Saturday Night Live. The episode was hosted by Connor Storrie, who starred in Heated Rivalry, a queer romance about two rival male hockey players.
Many fans of the show saw the Hughes brothers’ cameo as disrespectful to Storrie’s SNL debut (the irony).
“Heated Rivalry handed the NHL so much (unearned) goodwill from women & queer people this year. Their golden boys destroyed it in the MOST cliche boys-will-be-boys locker-room-talk bullshit way,” an X user wrote in response to news of their scheduled appearance.
Prior to their SNL appearance, Quinn mentioned that he was “really happy” for the women’s team, while Jack said that the negative backlash was for no apparent reason. They did see the women’s team in the cafeteria after all, which obviously means all is well, right? I mean, they hung out in the cafeteria!
Women do not — and while we’re at it, did not — ever deserve to be an afterthought. From having to fight to make way for other women in sports to getting opportunities out of obligation, it seems like we are constantly going back in time. We are unlearning and growing out of “systems” we fought so hard to establish.
Through this incident, the men’s hockey team seemed to re-establish the hierarchy we worked so hard to fight at every table and in every room.
