The USA women’s hockey team were pointedly given their moment to shine on Saturday Night Live after a week of outrage at Donald Trump’s comments over their Winter Olympics’ success.
Heated Rivalry star Connor Storrie, the guest host, first welcomed USA men’s heroes Jack and Quinn Hughes onto the show during his opening monologue, before women’s gold medal winners Hilary Knight and Megan Keller joined moments later to huge cheers from the audience.
After the USA men beat Canada in overtime in last Sunday’s final, Trump called them in the locker room with an invite to the State of the Union. He then joked he had to invite the gold medal-winning women’s team, too, or he’d be impeached.
The joke from the President was met with laughter from the men’s team, something they have received huge criticism for this week since returning to the United States. But on Saturday Night Live, the women had the last laugh.
As Knight and Keller walked out onto the stage, the Hughes brothers stepped aside to allow them to stand in the center with Storrie, after he had joked that no famous hockey players had watched his Heated Rivalry show.
‘Don’t worry, we saw your show,’ Keller said, to more huge cheers. When Storrie thanked them for joining, Knight quipped: ‘It was gonna be just us but we thought we’d invite the guys too.’
Conor Storrie welcomed gold medal winners from the men and women’s USA hockey teams
It comes after Trump joked at the expense of the women’s team about inviting them to the State of the Union earlier this week
Keller then nudged Quinn Hughes as she added: ‘Yeah, we thought we’d give them a little moment to shine.’
Storrie explained his show ‘speaks to people who are not always represented in hockey’, teeing up another joke at how much more attention the USA men got this week for their success.
‘The last time the men did that (win gold) was 46 years ago,’ Quinn said, before Knight added: ‘And the last time we did that was two whole OIympics’ ago.’
Jack Hughes then rounded the segment out by saying: ‘Nice burn but these gold medals aren’t just for us. They are for all hockey fans,’ before turning to Storrie and saying: ‘Yours too.’
The women’s team didn’t attend the State of the Union on Tuesday night but the men did and were praised by Trump when he brought them out to celebrate their win.
Later in the show, the women’s Trump State of the Union snub was referenced again and received massive cheers from the audience.
Trump said during his speech that he was awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to USA goaltender Connor Hellebuyck – the team’s star player in the win over Canada in Italy last week.
He also underlined his hope of welcoming the women’s team to the White House.
Trump has previously hit out at SNL, where he has been a long-standing target from the comedians on the show.
And he was mocked once again this weekend for overseeing an attack on Iran, alongside Israel, that killed the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in his compound in Tehran.
Storrie, meanwhile, has had a meteoric rise to stardom as one of the main characters in the gay hockey romance drama that he stars in.
