United States women’s national hockey team captain Hilary Knight is disappointed with President Donald Trump’s remarks on her team’s Olympic victory at the Milano Cortina Games 2026. Team USA had won the women’s ice hockey finals match after defeating Canada by a score of 2-1. Meanwhile, Switzerland finished with bronze after winning in overtime against Sweden by 2-1.
Speaking to ESPN on Wednesday, Knight said, “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.”
On Sunday, February 22, a video showed President Trump congratulating the men’s hockey team over a call after their Olympic gold win in Milano. However, what drew the criticism was the statement that he made at the end of the call after inviting the men’s team to his State of the Union address. Quite jokingly he commented, “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).”
The comment left the women’s team in shock and disappointment. It was reportedly the FBI director Kash Patel who had made the call to Trump. Patel was with the men’s team celebrating their victory in Italy, and the conversation between the President and them was conducted from the locker room.
The women’s team, however, declined to attend the meeting with reasons of academic and professional commitments. The men’s team went to meet with Trump at the White House. The women’s team, instead, is focusing on celebrating their victory.
“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,” she added.
The USA Women’s Team won their third gold at the Winter Olympics 2026 since their last win at the 1998 Games. Knight emphasizes the importance of women in sport.
“This is a really good learning point, to really focus on how we talk about women, not only in sport but in industry. Women aren’t less than and their achievements shouldn’t be overshadowed by anything else other than how great they are,” she concluded.
