'Distasteful and unfortunate': USA women's hockey team break their silence on Trump's joke

The USA women’s ice hockey team have broken their silence on Donald Trump’s joke at their expense – they’re disappointed, but not surprised.

At the 2026 Winter Olympics, both Team USA’s women and men’s ice hockey teams beat Canada to the gold medal. While most country leaders would take that opportunity to celebrate both teams equally, US president Trump had different ideas.

In a now-infamous phone call to the winning men’s team, Trump joked with the players that he would “have” to invite the women’s team to the White House, too, earning a chorus of laughter from those in the locker room.

The joke was slammed as “misogynistic” and was succeeded by the women’s team rejecting Trump’s invitation.

Now, the players have been giving their thoughts on Trump’s remark.

“I just thought the joke was distasteful and unfortunate,” Team USA captain Hilary Knight said. “And I think just the way women are represented, it’s a great teaching point to really shine light on how women should be championed for their amazing feats.

“And, now I have to sit, or anybody, has to sit in front of you and explain someone else’s behaviour. It’s not my responsibility.”

She continued: “These women are amazing and whatever’s going on should never outshine or minimise their work and our success on the world stage.”

In a separate interview, player Kelly Pannek, said: “I think the video is what it is. You’d have to ask them (the men’s team) their feelings on it.

“But, I think there’s also elements to it, with the phone call specifically, it’s not surprising, to be frank, so I don’t know why we expect differently.

“But, I think for us, it’s also just about getting back to the focus on our team and what our team accomplished."

Elsewhere, the team were asked about rapper Flavor Flav’s invitation for the team to come and party with him in Las Vegas.

Alex Carpenter responded: “It was definitely super special, after everything that’s been going around online, to be able to have someone step up like that and really go to bat for us … I think we’re fully going to take advantage of that and go have some fun and celebrate like we deserve to.”

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