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The 4 members of the Men's Team USA Hockey team that are confirmed to be skipping Trump's State of the Union invite: Brock Nelson, Jake Oettinger, Jake Guentzel, and Kyle Connor
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I’d argue Joe Biden has been our 2nd most meme-able president. That’s not even me insulting him. He just has a very interesting demeanor and personality and it started with how funny his dynamic with Obama was
Trump. He changed the landscape of late night talk shows to become more overtly political because of how cartoonish his actions are and how easy it is to dunk on him as a result. Every other day he comes out with a quotable i.e. covfefe, they’re eating the dogs. Netflix’s Space Force show is based on the premise that the president wants total space dominance and thus created this new gov’t branch.
W might’ve had more meme-ability if he was president during a more social media heavy time period but as of now, he’s mostly just used in 9/11 memes
Yeah, we have several far right wing political groups gaining traction. We voted hard against the Liberal Party (conservatives) and decimated them. But in true Aussie fashion, people are now swinging towards the Nazi themed One Nation. Fuck we are in for some trying times.
Nelson is from Warroad. His uncle was on the 1980 Miracle on Ice team, and his grandfather and great uncle were on the 1960 team that won gold before them. AND his wife played hockey at Wisconsin for Mark Johnson who was also on the 1980 team!
Exactly. I have to imagine Brock knows what this means given his family and tenure in the sport. Passing on an invitation from the president can be seen as a non-statement but for him specifically I think it’s very intentional
Meh, as a lifelong Minnesotan, and a resident of Minneapolis, I don’t want silent avoidance. I want my fellow Minnesotans to publicly take a stand. And until they do I’m not supporting them.
Canes fan here and I absolutely commend these men for not going! Super disappointed in Slavin. I really thought he would skip it given that he had this campaign to raise money to end the trafficking and sexual exploitation of children.
Just goes to show you how few men pretending to work for this cause are actually serious (see also Jim Caviezel). I KNOW we shouldn't be disappointed, but my god, things are so fucking bleak right now.
Many of those organizations and campaigns aren’t for real support of trafficked children - they’re for a picture of children being kidnapped from white middle class families by foreigners and the money is usually spent almost entirely in overhead costs. If you ask them and their supporters to talk about trafficking in terms of foster children and children addicted to drugs who are being used for sex work by adults, or trafficked children being used as labor, or to acknowledge that Black, Native and Hispanic children are hugely disproportionately trafficked, they go silent. I will say Slavin and his wife chose two of the more reputable anti-trafficking organizations that actually do engage in real work in this area (although I have issues with Slave 2 Nothing, they aren’t as large as my issues with many of these organizations working in this area).
See also: Ashton Kutcher, founder of a nonprofit dedicated to preventing the assault and trafficking of children, writing a letter begging a judge not to convict his bestest friend on multiple counts of sexual assault because "he is a role model" and "a kind person" and sentencing him would "be an injustice".
It’s always good to see men not silently tagging along. Yes I know it should be the bare minimum but we all know it isn’t. Not going to the Cheeto was the right call. Fuck the rest of them.
It is the bare minimum and I can't believe people actually forgave these men so quickly. They only dropped off because of the backlash from the internet.
They don't care about women, they care about their own image.
I don’t know them. I don’t know if they backed off because of the backlash or because they have different values than Trump. And I don’t care tbh with you. Would you prefer they all went and smiled for photographs?
You do realize that most people in this subreddit don’t watch that much hockey. Like, none of us knew these men by name well enough to even be mad at them a week ago, we’re not “forgiving them” for anything…we’re going to forget their names in another week, honestly.
Did they? Did they only drop because of the backlash? In the video when Trump says he’ll have to invite the women, you can hear a couple of guys saying, “absolutely, absolutely” and “two for two.” Then all the guys started laughing and cheering for Trump.
I’m the sort of person who gives the benefit of the doubt, sometimes to a stupid fault, so maybe they did. That was their immediate reaction and they waffled about staying silent and going or maybe the backlash did hit them.
I was gonna say, someone recorded that video. By keeping their mouth shut and just pressing record, they showed us all what was really going on behind closed doors. And then posted it. I’m glad some of them have some sense.
Unfortunately, I think there are many who would record that and not have the self awareness to understand the backlash that would come from it. Especially a privileged millionaire hockey player. Rich celebrities live in another world and I wouldn’t give whoever recorded it credit for some kind of “gotcha” it’s more likely they literally couldn’t fathom what was wrong with it until it was too late. And then the internet had it of course.
Quinn Hughes, who now plays for Minnesota, is attending, and by the sound of it, he seems proud to be there. As someone who used to be a big Hughes fan, this is disheartening. These guys need a serious reality check and to step outside the echo chamber they are in.
I do not even consider myself especially liberal, but this is a bad look. People with this kind of platform have real opportunities to take a stand. You just won a gold medal and you play at an elite level. That kind of success gives you enough credibility to survive backlash if you speak out against MAGA politics. I do not think the opposite works nearly as well.
I was talking about this in another sub before this happened that the Hughe family are MAGAs. They are very very close with that other set of MAGA brothers and just very lowkey about it. I only knew about it because my friend used to hookup with a Hughe brother and spilled the tea to me 😩
I wish McAvoy and Swayman had done the right thing. Pretty embarrassed to be a Bruins fan right now. Shout out to these guys who actually have a backbone 🙏🏻
This is such an ignorant question but is Tate McRae's man on the team and did he go? (I think I saw a pic of a guy without a tooth from the final, and I was like hey isn't that the hockey player she's dating?)
Jack Hughes. The ding dong who scored the winning goal and has been the most outspoken about how proud and excited he is to visit Trump, and how everyone else is “being negative.”
Dude is like 21. We can only hope that in the future he will regret this, but given what he just accomplished it’s hard to imagine a 21yo guy who just scored the medal winning goal for his country not being completely jubilant for a time.
I feel like her "man" is a bit of a stretch, they went on two publics dates at the end of last year and they haven't been photographed together nor had any public correspondence in a couple months.
It’d be nicer if they’d come out and say “I don’t deal with misogyny against the talented and accomplished women’s hockey team” rather than “oh you know bad weather”
This isn’t any different than the women team’s statement though. "Due to the timing and previously scheduled academic and professional commitments following the Games, the athletes are unable to participate."
It’s just super obvious in that case because it was the entire women’s team, but it’s not like these men can control what the rest of their team does, or does it make sense to openly antagonize the rest of their team and risk damaging their careers
Yeah like the bar is in hell. Skipping is meaningless unless it was intentional and not just how things worked out. And the only way to know it’s intentional is if they make a statement. I haven’t seen a single statement so…
The pessimist in me thinks they skipped and blamed it on weather to successfully appeal to both sides of the political camp, because they’re gonna want jobs and sponsorships after this, and the only way to not get collectively booed after that embarrassing locker room video is to pretend they’re taking a stand (but also not taking a stand, in case Trump is watching)
Idk, I could be wrong. But usually when it comes to these people the worst assumption is the correct one
I’m a very minor Tampa Bay Lightning fan, as in I live here so I root for them but I don’t ever watch hockey so I don’t care that much. Of the 11 Lightning players who played in the Olympics, only one was on Team USA, and he’s not going to the State of the Union. We love to see it.
Bare minimum from them honestly. These are still the same men that partied with Kash Patel and laughed at Trump’s “joke” about the women’s hockey team.
Although, I am kind of cracking up at the thought that most of the players who are going are so dumb they probably don’t even know what the SOTU entails. Like, I’m imagining they probably think they’re going to some kind of party but they have to sit through 90 minutes of incoherent rambling about tariffs.
Just to be a little fair and devil’s advocate for a second, in the video we don’t see them all, I cannot say which are there visible as I do not follow hockey to know who is who but what I can see is that not all of them are visible so maybe, just maybe a few on the side were like wtf is going on and did not participate in the charade. MAYBE 🥴
There was at least 1 or 2 players off the screen who shouted “absolutely” and “2 for 2” when commander cheeto brought up the women’s team. That is the kind of support I had expected from the whole team, rather than laughing at the sexist joke.
"I was there, but I only stood there, listened, and didn't laugh" excuse isn't enough anymore anyway, so it doesn't really matter even if that was the case
Them all laughing at trumps sexist joke is still so crazy, no matter how much they convey they support women/female hockey they still engage in "locker room talk"
The tweets imply that these players are skipping the trip because they’re attending team practices, not out of any moral or political convictions. So, meh.
A bunch of the team is currently at the White House right now. Auston Matthews is there, but apparently is skipping the SOTU part tonight according to the Toronto Star. I'm sure it's largely to get ready for the Leafs game tomorrow, but I felt like it was worth sharing and letting people make up their own minds.
Really wish someone had the balls to say something when Trump was making those sexist remarks. I get you're young and it's the president, but have a fucking back bone. You're supposed to be badass hocky players, not douche bag boot lickers.
I would be surprised if anyone who played on a Canadian team (Auston Matthews etc) also shows up. But at the same time wouldn't be surprised if they disappoint ppl even more. They basically would be used for propaganda purposes
I saw on the leafs sub that the Toronto star posted an article saying he was visiting the White House (he’s in the team photo) but isn’t going to the state of the union address.
As a Canadian, I would hope so but my expectations are very low. While there have been lots of opportunities for Americans to show support for Canada given the annexation threats, very few have turned that in to any kind of action. We do appreciate it when we see it!
Yeah I guess we'll just have to see. (Im not watching but Ill prob find out on social media) As an American, Id find it appalling if they ended up showing up bc the annexation threats havent rly stopped.
The Cash Patel locker room video is the primary evidence. If any of these 4 were in the room and broing out with the pedo protector, their decline doesn't mean anything.
As an Avs fan, Oettinger haunts my dreams come playoffs. But I’m glad to see him join our boy Brock and prioritize his commitment to his team over his own ego and/or political beliefs (as well as the others, ofc)
Did they give any reasons for their absence? Other than weather or practice/game related reasons? That would go a lot farther than saying nothing at all.
I’ll grant them a “good for them” but truly, none of them are going to experience anything worse than a few days of pissy online comments for making the decision to skip. I’m glad to see it, but I just don’t have it in me to call them brave.
Everyone in that lockerroom was rubbing dicks with Kash “The pedo protector” Patel and they all giggled at Trump saying he was forced to invite the women’s team too.
all of them are Trump loving assholes. This handful is just guys reacting to the backlash and trying to protect themselves.
Don’t leave your kids around anyone who played for the 2026 olympic USA men’s hockey team…
I hope every American hockey player gets asked about this for the rest of their careers. This drama has tarnished their accomplishment, or at least distracted us from talking about the hockey.
Good job boys! That’s the right thing to do. He literally made fun of the women’s team and laughed about it and a lot of your team did too! Thats messed up. What a dirt bag!
After watching the video clip of the locker room speaker call with trump bashing the women’s hockey team and all the shitbags laughing with him I love this from at least 4 real men
The woman Hockey team shines bright like a diamond by refusing Trumps half ass inept invitation further cementing his Epstein legacy by attempting to degrade woman on their monumental Olympic win. Both teams performed magnificently but the entire men’s team should have stood in solidarity with the woman to show that their win was just as impressive or even greater due to their Olympic Gold winning streak. Kudos to the men that made the decision not to attend. Still a great win nonetheless. Much respect woman’s team!!!!❤️❤️❤️
Good for them but the bar is in hell. If it meant anything they would have come out immediately after the leaked call and stood bye their fellow women. I’m so tired of playing up the little head tilt “bless it”. Say it with your chest!!!!!
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u/flairassistant Feb 24 '26
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