Jake Guentzel and the fallout from the U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team’s gold celebration

The U. S. men’s hockey team’s gold-medal victory at the 2026 Winter Olympics has been followed by a wave of criticism and questions about the team’s postgame conduct. Jake Guentzel — unclear in the provided context — appears in the headline for context around the coverage, but the record in the provided material does not confirm any role or involvement for him.

Sunday’s win and the immediate euphoria

The men’s team beat Canada, 2-1, to claim Olympic gold at the 2026 Winter Olympics, a first U. S. Olympic men’s hockey gold since the “Miracle on Ice” 46 years earlier. For a few hours on Sunday afternoon the country’s reaction was unusually unified: strangers high‑fived in bars, grownups hugged with wet eyes, and three heart‑stopping periods of hockey plus one cathartic overtime produced a rare national high point. Photographer Alexander Tamargo is credited in the context for images of those scenes.

Locker‑room call with President Donald Trump and the controversial joke

In the immediate aftermath the team took a customary congratulatory call from President Donald Trump. On that call Trump said, “We’re going to have to bring the women's team, you do know that. I do believe I probably would be impeached. ” Video of the locker‑room call emerged and players’ laughter at the remark drew criticism; the comment was characterized in the context as a misogynistic joke about the gold‑winning women’s team. The person who placed the call into the locker room after the win was FBI Director Kash Patel.

Criticism over tone, interpretation and the women’s team invite

The men’s team’s postgame response prompted criticism from some observers. Some interpreted Trump’s phrasing to mean he felt obliged to invite the women’s team — which also won gold at the 2026 Olympics — and would do so begrudgingly. Others saw the men’s laughter as disrespectful to the women’s team, which accomplished the same feat and, in the provided context, turned in a more dominant run to gold. Trump later invited the women’s hockey team to the State of the Union; a spokesperson for the women’s team said the squad was “sincerely grateful” for the invite but could not attend because of “previously scheduled academic and professional commitments. ”

Comments from Jack Hughes, Quinn Hughes and Ellen Hughes

Jack Hughes, who scored the game‑winning goal in the gold‑medal game, defended the men’s team and said the team was “proud” of the women’s accomplishment. He told listeners the locker room knows how much the men support the women and that the team was “excited” and “proud to represent the US, ” calling a chance to visit the White House “so patriotic. ” Quinn Hughes addressed the matter during a televised appearance on Tuesday, saying the men’s team was “really happy” for the women and noting that the men and women had trained together in recent summers and gotten to know many of the women players. Their mother, Ellen Hughes — who played for Team USA at the 1992 Women's World Championship — described both teams as being about “unity” during the Games, saying they can bring people together across political divides.

Partying in Italy and Miami, Kash Patel under scrutiny, and plans for the House Chamber

Post‑victory celebrations extended beyond the rink. The men’s team returned from Italy and then had a wild night of partying in Miami. They celebrated in the locker room with a beer‑chugging FBI Director, Kash Patel; Patel had flown to Italy and partied with the team following the victory and is under scrutiny for using taxpayer money to fund what was described in the context as a sports getaway. After the partying, some members of the team announced plans to step into the House Chamber and make an appearance at the President’s State of the Union — a move the provided context described as entering a stage “upon which symbolism is never neutral. ”

What remains after the medal and the controversy

No one can take the gold medal away from Team USA or the feeling that accompanied the win. But the provided material says the widespread celebration has diminished and that some of the team’s goodwill has been lost. Commentators in the context argued the team neither created the wider political divide nor displayed a shrewd instinct for navigating it, and that in the afterglow of triumph players have agency that can be ceded by missteps. Beyond those lines of commentary, the record in the provided material leaves some particulars unclear in the provided context.