Jack Hughes Says US Men’s Hockey Team Is ‘Excited’ to Visit White House as Women’s Team Turns Down Invitation

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Unless you’ve spent the last few days living under a rock in a cave on Mars, then you’re probably aware that both the US men’s and the US women’s hockey teams won gold medals at the Olympics.

And you also may have heard that Donald Trump made an idiotic joke about the women’s team in his congratulatory call to the men.

Not surprisingly, the women’s team has collectively turned down their invitation to the White House. And many are disappointed that the men have failed to stick up for them.

In case you missed it, Trump “joked” that he would be forced to invite the women’s team to the White House, otherwise he would be “impeached.”

To the chagrin of many, the players mostly laughed along.

Many have pointed out that they’re mostly very young, they had just won a gold medal, and they were on a phone call with the President of the United States.

In other words, they might have just been giddily laughing along with whatever Trump said.

But the disappointment from critics extends to the men’s team’s decision to side-step anything that resembles controversy — a stance that has prevented them from speaking out in defense of the women’s team.

“Yeah, we’re excited. Everything is so political. We’re athletes. We’re so proud to represent the US and when you get the chance to go to White House and meet the president, we’re proud to be Americans and that’s so patriotic,” said Jack Hughes, who scored the medal-winning goal in overtime against Canada, told the Daily Mail on Monday.

“No matter what your views are we’re super excited to go to the White House tomorrow and be a part of that.”

Hughes went on to state that he plans to avoid all “negativity” and he and his team continue on their nationwide victory lap.

“People are so negative about things. I think everyone in that locker room knows how much we support them, how proud we are of them and we know the same way we feel about them, they feel about us,” he said of the women’s team, adding:

“They’ve got busy schedules, too. Everyone is giving us backlash for all the social media stuff today. People are so negative out there and they are just trying to find a reason to put people down and make something out of almost nothing.

“Our relationship with them, over the course of being in the Athletes’ Village, I think we are so tight with their group. After we won the gold medal we were in the cafeteria at 3:30am in the morning with them and we go from there, pack our bags and we’re on the bus.”

The men’s team is expected to be in attendance at Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night.

Needless to say, the women’s team will not be on hand.