Fellow Boston Bruin and Team USA player Charlie McAvoy apologized for the behavior, saying on Thursday he is “certainly sorry for how we responded to it in that moment.”
“If you know the men’s team and you know the relationships that we have, the amount of time that we’ve spent with the women’s team and how we’ve supported them, it’s certainly not reflective of how we feel and look at them, and their accomplishments,” McAvoy told reporters.
Team USA’s Jake Sanderson, of the Ottawa Senators, called the team’s reaction “a mistake” — but said that “things got blown out of proportion.”
“If we were to do it again, I think we wouldn’t do that and we made a mistake. But again, I think it kind of got blown out of proportion a little bit. You know we love the women, eat lunch with them, like I said before, so nothing but the upmost respect for all of them them,” Sanderson told reporters on Thursday.
The moment, where FBI Director and guest of the men’s team Kash Patel called Trump, was captured on video and sparked criticism of the men’s team. Women’s team captain Hilary Knight said Wednesday on ESPN’s “SportsCenter” that she doesn’t want the “distasteful” joke to overshadow their gold medal win at the Olympics.
“I think this is just a really good learning point to really focus on, you know, how we talk about women,” Knight said. “Not only in sport, but in industry. Women aren’t less than, and our achievements shouldn’t be overshadowed by anything else other than how great they are.”
The majority of the U.S. men attended the State of the Union on Tuesday night, but the women’s team declined the invitation citing scheduling issues.
