Vancouver Goldeneyes players are speaking up in support of their American counterparts after U.S. President Donald Trump’s “distasteful” comments about women’s hockey.
The Goldeneyes had a media availability Friday (Feb. 27) with their Olympic players – and questions inevitably turned to Trump’s now-infamous call with the U.S. men’s hockey team after their gold-medal win.
Shortly after the Americans won gold against Canada, FBI director Kash Patel visited the locker room.
While there, he called President Donald Trump, and in a video of the call in the locker room, you can hear the President inviting the men to the White House, saying “they would have to bring the women’s team, I do believe I would probably be impeached” if the women weren’t invited.
At this point, many of the players on the team erupted in laughter.
None of the men on the U.S. team has apologized. The U.S. women’s team declined an invitation to the White House but will be attending a special celebration by Flavor Flav this summer in Las Vegas.
Hilary Knight, the U.S. women’s hockey team captain, spoke about the incident at a Seattle Torrent press conference on Wednesday (Feb. 25).
“I thought the joke was distasteful and unfortunate, and I think women are represented. It is a great teaching point on how women should be championed for their amazing feats. Now I sort of have to be in front of you and explain someone else’s behaviour, it’s not my responsibility,” Knight said.
Vancouver Goldeneyes forward Sarah Nurse agreed with Knight.
“I think it’s tough to have to walk into situations, and it happens far too often in women’s sports and women in general, really walking in and kind of cleaning up messes that aren’t really theirs,” Nurse said. “And so I think she put it very eloquently, and at the end of the day, I hope they all feel very supported by the women’s hockey community, by their country, because at the end of the day, it’s like an honour to represent your country, and to bring home a medal is one of the greatest things.”
Jenn Gardiner, a Goldeneyes forward from Surrey, echoed Nurse’s sentiment.
“Honestly, just the outpouring of support that we’ve had for female hockey in the last couple of weeks, especially, has been so incredible. And I think that for us as athletes, that’s all we really look at, is just how special and how much that means to us, and just the amount of people that have reached out and have been supporting us and have had our backs and have been supporting us, it just really goes a long way.”