President Donald Trump invited the U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team to attend his State of the Union address after the Americans won gold at the Milan Cortina Olympics on Sunday.
FBI Director Kash Patel was in the locker room during the celebration and put Trump on speakerphone so players could hear the president’s message firsthand.
“I’ll tell you what. I just told my people two minutes ago, I didn’t know they’d be calling, I said we’re giving the State of the Union speech on Tuesday night,” Trump said. “I can send a military plane or something, but if you would like to, it’s the coolest night, it’s the biggest speech …”
One player jumped in and cut him off: “We’re in.”
🚨JUST IN: President Donald Trump called Team USA hockey team after they beat Canada to win the Gold and invited them to come to the State of the Union Address Tuesday night.
— MLFootball (@MLFootball) February 23, 2026
The entire team accepted the invitation and they are arranging transport.
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Trump kept rolling, promising a quick, no-hassle trip back to Washington.
“We’ll get Kash, and we’ll get the military to get you guys over,” Trump continued. “You won’t have to worry about the weather or landing. We don’t care if it’s snowing or if it’s the worst blizzard – we’ll be sailing through like you did on the ice.”
Trump also told the team he plans to honor them the next day and said the U.S. women’s team would be included as well.
He singled out goaltender Connor Hellebuyck after a standout performance in the gold-medal game, where he stopped 41 shots.
“By the way, your goalie played not bad. … I’ve seen hockey goalies have slightly worse games. Unbelievable and you were all unbelievable. The team is pretty good, you played,” Trump said.
Players appeared energized by the call and sounded ready to take the president up on the invite, with the prospect of going from an Olympic locker room in Italy to a prime-time speech in Washington within days.
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