Boston Bruins
“Definitely sorry for a way we responded to it in that second.”
Lower than per week after enjoying a key position in Staff USA’s first Olympic gold medal in males’s hockey since 1980, Charlie McAvoy will look to get again on the ice for the Bruins in a pivotal matchup towards the Columbus Blue Jackets.
McAvoy — who logged the second-most ice time on Staff USA behind Quinn Hughes in the course of the 2026 Milano-Cortina video games — shall be a game-decision for Thursday’s matchup towards Columbus, who sit 4 factors behind Boston within the logjammed Japanese Convention standings.
“Simply such an emotional curler coaster to undergo, to have such a lifelong dream completed, after which to form of have to show the web page, what feels fairly fast,” McAvoy mentioned. “It’s a whole lot of journey in a brief period of time. So simply to lastly get dwelling. It looks like we’re proper again at it.”
The 28-year-old defenseman touched on quite a few topics throughout his assembly with the Boston media on Thursday at TD Backyard — together with the discourse over Staff USA’s response to a joke from President Donald Trump that was directed on the US ladies’s hockey crew.
After the US men’s team defeated Canada 2-1 in overtime on Sunday to clinch Olympic gold, the gamers obtained a congratulatory cellphone name from Trump — who invited the crew to the White Home and the State of the Union handle on Tuesday.
As a part of that invitation, video captured inside the Staff USA locker room confirmed Trump disparaging the US ladies’s crew — who additionally gained their third gold medal final week with an overtime victory over Canada.
“I have to let you know, we’re going to must carry the ladies’s crew, you do know that,” Trump mentioned, including that he’d “most likely be impeached” if he didn’t invite the ladies’s crew. A number of of the lads’s crew gamers laughed at Trump’s remark.
McAvoy apologized for the response from Staff USA to Trump’s joke — which US women’s hockey captain Hilary Knight labeled as “distasteful” on Wednesday.
“Definitely sorry for a way we responded to it in that second,” McAvoy mentioned. “Issues simply occurred actually fast there. If you recognize the lads’s crew and the relationships we’ve got and the time we spent with the ladies’s crew — it’s definitely not reflective of how we look and feel at them and their accomplishment. What they did was unbelievable.”
The US ladies’s crew dominated the Olympic area in Milan, outscoring opponents, 33-2, and posting 5 shutout victories as a part of their 7-0 file in the course of the worldwide match.
Whereas a majority of the US males’s crew — together with McAvoy and Bruins teammate Jeremy Swayman — visited Trump on the White Home and attended the State of the Union handle on the US Capitol, the US women’s team declined Trump’s invitation.
“We’re sincerely grateful for the invitation prolonged to our gold medal-winning U.S. Girls’s Hockey Staff and deeply recognize the popularity of their extraordinary achievement,” Staff USA mentioned in an announcement, per The Athletic. “As a result of timing and beforehand scheduled educational {and professional} commitments following the Video games, the athletes are unable to take part. They had been honored to be included and are grateful for the acknowledgment.”
Trump claimed throughout his speech on Tuesday that the U.S. ladies’s crew could be visiting with him “quickly”, though no formal plans have been introduced as of Thursday afternoon.
On Wednesday, Swayman also acknowledged that Team USA should have reacted differently to Trump’s remark.
“We should always have reacted in another way. We all know that,” Swayman mentioned. “We’re so excited for the ladies’s crew. Now we have a lot respect for the ladies’s crew, and to share that gold medal with them is one thing that we’re without end grateful for. And now that we’re dwelling, we get to share that collectively without end and see the unimaginable assist that we’ve got from the USA and sharing this unimaginable gold medal.”
McAvoy added Thursday that each the lads’s and ladies’s groups shared a powerful bond in the course of the Winter Video games — one which made their pair of gold-medal triumphs much more particular.
“We had this third ground there within the [Olympic] Village and it was form of among the ladies’s crew there, the coach’s room the place all people was always. So, the lads’s and ladies’s crew simply made associates for all times with them,” McAvoy mentioned. “We supported them the identical approach that they supported us, so we share this collectively.
“I do know that and I do know that I’m fairly assured they understand how I really feel about them and what they’ve been capable of accomplish and the way in which that they did it, too, with how dominant they performed. I believe America must be so happy with them for his or her accomplishment, for positive.”
Fellow Staff USA defenseman Zach Werenski — who will play towards McAvoy and the Bruins as Columbus’ go-to blueliner — additionally provided up an apology towards the US ladies’s crew on Thursday after morning skate.
“Clearly, it’s not an incredible second,” Werenski said Thursday. “It doesn’t look nice, so I perceive that. However, you recognize, I believe deep down, they understand how we really feel about them and the way a lot assist we’ve got for them.
“Simply unimaginable folks, unimaginable hockey gamers, they usually’ve completed a lot for the sport of hockey. …. There are going to be so many ladies on the market who play that wish to be Megan Keller and Caroline Harvey. They’ve modified the game of hockey and I couldn’t be extra supportive of them. Like I mentioned, clearly, it seems to be dangerous within the second. Didn’t imply something by that.”
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