US women’s hockey star Abbey Murphy has leapt to the defense of their male counterparts and insisted they didn’t need to apologize over Donald Trump’s controversial locker-room joke.
Following their gold-medal triumph over Canada on Sunday, Trump was seen enjoying a congratulatory phone call with the men’s team as they celebrated the victory over their bitter rivals.
Yet in a moment which has sparked uproar, at one stage the president could be heard saying that he was also ‘going to have to bring the women’s team’ to Washington after they too got the better of Canada to claim gold.
He then added that he ‘probably would be impeached’ if he didn’t extend the custom invitation to America’s female hockey champions.
Trump’s remark caused outrage online, with a number of users accusing him of misogyny and also criticizing the men’s team for still accepting his invitation to both attend his State of the Union speech and visit the White House. The women’s team declined due to ‘academic and professional commitments.’
Though according to Murphy, who registered two goals and five assists throughout the tournament, the men did not owe them an apology over the exchange with Trump.
US women’s hockey star Abbey Murphy has leapt to the defense of the men’s team this week
Donald Trump made a controversial joke to the men’s team about their female colleagues
‘You hear someone in the back of the phone call yell “two for two”, and we never felt anything bad from them,’ she said about the viral video.
‘It’s sad that they even had to apologize for anything. It was a huge part for both teams and honestly a really cool moment.’
Murphy also went on to highlight the strong relationship between both the women’s and men’s teams, explaining how they sat together for two-and-a-half hours after their win over Canada on Sunday.
‘They’re a special group of boys and we’re just honored to be on that journey with them,’ she stressed.
‘But we know how much they respect us and we respect them, so it definitely goes two ways.’
During his State of the Union speech on Tuesday, Trump announced that the USA women’s team will still be visiting the White House at a later date despite rejecting his first invitation.
‘They beat a fantastic Canadian team in overtime, as everybody saw. As did the American women who will soon be coming to the White House,’ he told a filled chamber of Congress.
The men’s team were present for Trump’s State of the Union speech, parading their gold medals after becoming America’s first male Olympic champions since 1980.
They received criticism for still heading to Washington to visit Trump after his contentious joke
However, NHL star Charlie McAvoy has said he regrets the way he and his teammates reacted to the president’s locker-room joke.
‘Certainly sorry for how we responded to it in that moment,’ he said on Thursday after returning from their gold-medal celebration in Washington. ‘You know, things just happened really quick there.’
Winger Brady Tkachuk has also admitted that he could see why their female counterparts might have felt insulted by Trump’s comments.
‘I mean, I get it,’ he said before detailing the positive relationship between the men’s and women’s teams. ‘We support them, they support us. You can’t control what other people say. It was fun being around them, seeing how they play and the excellence around them.
‘If I see one of them, we’ll talk about the excitement of what we can control, which is to be gold medalists.’
