Feb 25 (Reuters) – Hilary Knight, who captained the U.S. women’s ice hockey team to a gold medal at the Winter Olympics, did not mince her words when asked about comments President Donald Trump made about her team following the American men’s victory at the Games.
After the U.S. men beat Canada for gold on Sunday, they took a call from Trump while celebrating in their locker room with FBI Director Kash Patel and the president extended an invite to them for Tuesday’s State of the Union and a White House visit.
“I must tell you, we’re going to have to bring the women’s team, you do know that?” Trump said.
Trump then joked that failing to invite the women’s team would likely result in his impeachment.
“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 Team USA and having amazing gold medal feats,” Knight said on ESPN.
A White House official said, as Trump has stated, they look forward to hosting the women’s team. The women’s team have not confirmed any plans to visit.
The U.S. women’s team passed on the invite to attend the State of the Union, saying in a statement that while they were grateful for the recognition of their achievement, the timing and scheduled commitments meant they were unable to be there.
Knight preferred to emphasise her team’s achievement.
“We’re just focusing on celebrating the women in our room, the extraordinary efforts, and continuing 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,” she said. “And really not detract from that with a distasteful joke.”
In the women’s gold medal game, Knight deflected a shot from Laila Edwards past Canadian goalie Renee Desbiens with just over two minutes to play, forcing overtime during which Megan Keller clinched Team USA’s third Olympic gold medal in ice hockey.
Knight’s tally marked her 15th career Olympic goal and 33rd career Games point, breaking the U.S. Olympic women’s hockey record for all-time goals and points.
(Reporting by Frank Pingue in Toronto, editing by Ed Osmond and Michael Perry)
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