NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman Defends Team USA Hockey Men Over Post-Gold Medal Game Controversy
Bettman said media portrayal of the situation was "unfortunate and not accurate"
If there was one bummer about the 2026 Winter Olympics, which saw both the men and women winning hockey gold for the first time, it was the "controversy" that came from President Trump's phone call to the men in the locker room after their overtime win over Canada.
It was, in reality, a nothingburger that spun out of control thanks to the left-wing media that will take any crumb Trump might give them and turn it into a huge issue. That, and you had a lot of people who got mad based on that reporting, but never bothered actually to watch the clip in question.
If they had — as NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman obviously has — they'd realize there was really never anything there.
"I know for a fact that the men's team had no intention of doing anything to slight the women's team," Bettman said on Tuesday at the Scotiabank Saddledome in Calgary, per Sportsnet. "If anything, both teams were chanting, 'Two for two.'"
Bettman also said that he thought the portrayal of the situation "was unfortunate and not accurate."
Right on both counts, there, Gary.
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"What happened and how it was portrayed, I wish didn't happen the way it did, and I think it was unfair to the men's team," he said. "And again, I don't think the women's team had a different view of it. I mean, look at (U.S. women's captain) Hilary Knight and the others talking about what happened. These two teams respected each other."
What Bettman is hitting on was what I thought was the wildest thing about the entire situation: the women's team — who were supposed to be the offended party — were downplaying this too.
But nope. Never mind whether or not they were upset or offended. This was a prime opportunity to ruin what should've been a great, unifying moment for a country, thanks, once again, to the sport of hockey.
Wild how it does that, isn't it?
What I never understood was that you had people acknowledging that the president had made a joke, saw the mutual respect between the two teams, heard all parties involved downplay it, and still were mad.
Fortunately, I think people with an ounce of sense and who don't live on social media realized what happened.
But too many people still fall into the other category.