Members of the U.S. Olympic males’s hockey crew applaud as their teammate Connor Hellebuyck places his hand to his coronary heart throughout U.S. President Donald Trump’s State of the Union Tackle within the Home Chamber on the U.S. Capitol in Washington on February 24, 2026.
| Picture Credit score: Reuters
U.S. President Donald Trump stated Tuesday (February 24, 2026) he was giving the nation’s highest civilian honour to nationwide ice hockey crew goalkeeper Connor Hellebuyck as he honoured the squad at his State of the Union tackle to Congress.
The Presidential Medal of Freedom has been given to popes and political activists and likewise Olympic athletes prior to now.
Trump’s embrace of the boys’s crew got here as the ladies’s facet, which additionally gained gold on the not too long ago concluded Winter Olympics, declined an invite to the speech.
“Right here with us is a bunch of winners,” Mr. Trump stated because the hockey crew entered Congress — the gamers carrying their gold medals round their necks — to chants of “USA, USA, USA!”
“Nice athletes have gotten that,” Mr. Trump stated of the award. “I believed he deserved it.”
Mr. Hellebuyck stood out within the males’s 2-1 gold medal win over Canada with 41 blocked photographs together with a spectacular behind-the-back save.
The ladies’s crew stated earlier Tuesday (February 24, 2026) it had declined the invitation to the State of the Union, although Mr. Trump stated in his speech they “will quickly be coming to the White Home.”
A press release from USA Hockey, the game’s nationwide governing physique, despatched to AFP Tuesday (February 24, 2026) stated the gamers had been “unable to take part” within the State of the Union on account of prior commitments.
Crew USA’s ladies’s crew gained gold for the primary time since 2018 once they beat the Canadians Thursday, additionally 2-1.
The U.S. males’s crew adopted that up Sunday (February 22, 2026) with their very own ice hockey gold for the primary time in 46 years.
In a video shared on-line quickly after the win, Mr. Trump might be heard on speaker telephone in a name with the boys’s crew, inviting them to the tackle earlier than saying: “We’re gonna must convey the ladies’s crew, you do know that?” to which the gamers snicker.
“I do imagine I might most likely be impeached” if he did not invite them, the President added.
Some 20 members of the boys’s crew arrived on the White Home Tuesday (February 24, 2026) afternoon, forward of that night’s speech on the Capitol, carrying Crew USA sweaters.
The assertion on behalf of the ladies’s crew stated: “We’re sincerely grateful for the invitation,” however that the gamers wouldn’t be attending “as a result of timing and beforehand scheduled tutorial {and professional} commitments.”
At the least 5 members of the boys’s crew additionally didn’t attend, in response to U.S. media stories, with gamers saying they had been heading again to their NHL groups for coaching.
Printed – February 25, 2026 09:11 am IST