As ice skates grazed the rink of the Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena for the final time during the men’s hockey final, Team USA won its 33rd medal of this year’s Winter Olympic Games. Twelve  U.S. medals were gold, placing second worldwide to Norway’s 41 medals, 18 of which were gold.

Team USA’s men’s and women’s hockey teams squeaked out historic victories over Canada, both prevailing in winner-take-all overtimes, 2-1. While Team USA fans cheered as gold medals were bestowed upon the athletes, postgame conduct in the men’s locker room has, for some, cast a hazy cloud over the victory. 

Minutes after the men’s hockey team received their medals, an unlikely guest joined them: FBI Director Kash Patel. Beer bottle in hand, Patel celebrated with the team by spraying his beer across the room, and left winger Matthew Tkachuk even put his gold medal around Patel’s neck. 

On a call from Patel’s phone, President Donald Trump invited the men’s team to his Feb. 24 State of the Union address to celebrate them. The team accepted, and Trump joked that he “probably would be impeached” if he did not also invite the women’s team. According to videos posted to social media, the men’s locker room erupted in laughter. 

The women’s team declined a formal invitation from Trump, citing “previously scheduled academic and professional commitments.” 

Kayla Nuehlen, a captain of Emerson College’s softball team, was disappointed but not surprised by Trump’s remarks and the team’s reaction. She said it was the right move for the women’s team to skip the State of the Union. 

“Why be somewhere where you’re obviously not wanted?” she said. “You were invited, but [Trump] made it public that you were only invited because he felt that he needed to, or he would be impeached.”

To date, the men’s and women’s hockey teams each have three gold medals. The men clinched their first gold medal victory since the 1980 Miracle on Ice, where, during the semifinals, Team USA beat the Soviet Union. The U.S. previously won gold in 1960. The women’s team earned their second gold medal within 10 years, after beating Canada in Pyeongchang, South Korea in 2018. They also took gold against Canada in 1998, the first time women’s ice hockey was played at the Olympic level. 

According to Nuehlen, if the men won as frequently as the women have, there would be more fanfare.

“But because it’s the women … they don’t get the recognition that they should for winning how often that they have,” she said.

Sam Zannotti ’25, who played softball and ran cross country at Emerson, said that no matter how equal people claim treatment of men’s and women’s sports is, they never will be. 

“Men’s and women’s sports, not just hockey, will always have a divide and people who see them as opposites instead of one,” Zannotti wrote in a statement to The Beacon. “I think that women will always have to fight twice as hard for what they want, and that sucks.” 

As a lifelong hockey fan, Annie Douma ’25 feels that every time men do something “stupid or offensive,” people look to women to rationalize or make sense of such actions. This constant rationalization leads to a pattern of denial, which she says leads to systemic issues not being acknowledged. 

“Every once in a while, as a woman … in hockey, you are very jarringly reminded that that space is not for you,” Douma said. “Anyone can watch the game, but can everyone feel welcome watching the game? Does everyone feel accepted and like they belong? Those are two different things.”

Kaylin O’Meara, a member of the women’s basketball and soccer teams at Emerson, said that divisions caused by this incident relate to the inequality between men’s and women’s sports. 

“Women have always been fighting to get the same attention and to get the same credit that a lot of men get,” she said.

Last Saturday, members of both hockey teams appeared on Saturday Night Live alongside guest host Connor Storrie. Women’s captain Hilary Knight joked she and teammate Megan Keller “thought we’d invite the guys too,” receiving raucous applause.

One of Nuehlen’s co-captains, pitcher Kate Regan, said she thinks that members of both teams appearing together on SNL felt more like a PR stunt than an “actual apology.” She also believes the men’s team needs to do a better job of holding themselves accountable. 

“People will see that everything looks fine between the two teams and forget about the whole situation,” Regan wrote in a statement to The Beacon. “It is only a matter of time before something like this happens again, and we go through the same exact cycle.”

One continued example of this inequity playing out on the world stage is the pay gap between male and female professional soccer players. In 2022, the World Cup-winning U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team settled a lawsuit on the issue with U.S. Soccer and received a pledge from the organization that the pay gap would be equalized between teams in future competitions. It was later revealed that during the 2023 Women’s World Cup, female athletes received 25% of the prize money their male counterparts earned the year before. 

Moving forward, O’Meara believes that celebrating men’s and women’s victories equally is necessary for the country’s long-term Olympic success. 

“From here, I think they should really focus on … uplifting the women’s team’s voices and just giving credit where it’s due,” she said. “They won a gold medal, and I don’t think any of this should negate either of the two teams.” 

The day before the men’s team visited the White House, center Jack Hughes said that “Everything is so political. We’re athletes.” After playing women’s soccer and basketball at Emerson, Ava Salti ’24 believes that situations like this, where athletes wish to keep sports and politics separate, are hypocritical.

“If you’re going to invite Kash Patel into the locker room and answer a phone call from the president, you’re making sports political,” Salti said. “And if there’s any sporting event that’s the most political, it is the Olympics. So I think that’s where it gets a little bit hypocritical.” 

Salti believes people should take a step back and look at the bigger picture: sports are a microcosm of society, and the nuanced issues plaguing the world also plague sports. 

“We can use sports as a mechanism to have positive change,” Salti said. “We should check ourselves when we have these locker room talks, because this one was broadcast to the entire world. It’s very clear that … there’s a way to be better.”