Hilary Knight isn’t happy with what President Donald Trump said to the men’s hockey team on a phone call shortly after they beat Canada to win gold at the Olympics on Sunday.
But she’s just trying to move on from that “distasteful joke” and focus on actually celebrating the women’s team’s gold medal win at the Milan Cortina Olympics instead.
“I thought it was sort of a distasteful joke, and unfortunately, that is overshadowing a lot of the success, the success of just women at the Olympics carrying for Team USA and having amazing gold medal feats,” Knight said on ESPN on Wednesday.
“We’re just focusing on celebrating the women in our room, the extraordinary efforts, and continue to celebrate three gold medals in program history as well as the double gold for both men’s and women’s at the same time. And really not detract from that with a distasteful joke.”
Trump drew significant criticism on Sunday after a video emerged of him congratulating the men’s hockey team for also winning gold at the Olympics. Near the end of the call, after inviting the men’s team to his State of the Union address, he laughed and told players that, “We’re going to have to bring the women’s team, you do know that. I do probably believe I would be impeached [if I didn’t].”
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That comment drew laughs from men’s players in the locker room. FBI director Kash Patel was the one who called Trump after Team USA’s win. Patel flew to Italy and celebrated with the team in the locker room, something that also received blowback.
Though they were eventually invited, the women’s team declined to attend the State of the Union address on Tuesday night, citing “previously scheduled academic and professional commitments.” Trump has since claimed that they “will soon be coming,” but the women’s hockey team has not committed to a visit.
A large portion of the men’s team did attend and met Trump at the White House on Tuesday. Trump also said that he was going to give goalie Connor Hellebuyck the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
“We’re really happy for them,” Quinn Hughes, a member of the men’s hockey team, said on Tuesday. “[There’s] a lot going on around social media right now surrounding our team and their team, but in the last couple summers, we did a lot of training with them and got to know a lot of those girls really well.”
Knight said that feeling was mutual, even if everything that has happened since the win has dominated the story.
“I think there’s a genuine level of support there and respect,” she said. “I think that’s being overshadowed by a quick lapse. I think the guys were in a tough spot, so I think it’s a shame this storyline and narrative has kind of blown up and overshadowing that connection and genuine interest in one another and cheering each other on.”
Knight wasn’t alone on the women’s team in speaking out, either.
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Hayley Scamurra was asked about it on “The Hockey Lifers” show on Tuesday, and said simply that “the call was what it was.”
“Honestly like, the outpouring of love and support we’ve kind of received since that has outweighed any other feelings that I have,” she said. “I’m really just focused on the positives … Honestly, I just want to focus on how great our team is and how dominant we were the whole tournament. We got double gold, men’s and women’s side, like that is so incredible. I want to celebrate that, and I don’t want that to be overshadowed.”
Knight, 36, announced in May that she would retire after the Olympics. She won her second gold medal and is now the most decorated U.S. women’s hockey player in history. She leads all American hockey players, men or women, with 15 Olympic goals and 33 points in her career. She scored the tying goal to force overtime with Canada in the gold medal game, too.
The win was Team USA’s third gold at the Olympics since women’s hockey was added to the Games in 1998.
“[This is a] really good learning point, to really focus on how we talk about women, not only in sport but in industry,” Knight said. “Women aren’t less than and their achievements shouldn’t be overshadowed by anything else other than how great they are.”
