Team USA Olympic hockey hero Jack Hughes spoke about his support for his country’s women’s hockey team after his team was the subject of backlash for laughing at a joke by President Donald Trump about the women’s team. 

During an interview on ESPN’s “The Pat McAfee Show” Friday, Hughes opened up about his respect for the women’s team after McAfee appeared to reference the controversy by joking that Hughes and his teammates “hate” the women players. 

“We are hanging out with them so much, the women’s team. We were supporting them. Like, we were at their games, they were at our games,” Hughes said. 

Hughes then appeared to address the recent criticism of his team for its response to Trump’s joke.

“Like all these people talking, how many of them watched their gold medal game? Me and Quinn Hughes were at the game. We were at the game until like overtime ended on the glass, and we were jumping up and down so excited for these girls, so excited they won,” Hughes said. 

“And how many of these people watched the gold medal game, watched their semifinals game? Like 10 of the 10 of our players went to their game in the round-robin. Like, we supported them so much, and we’re so proud of them. We’re so happy that they won, and they brought a gold medal back and that, you know, I said it, the men’s and women’s team both brought gold medals back. So, just unbelievable for USA hockey.”

Hughes, who scored the game-winning overtime goal against Canada to win gold, reflected on his interaction with the player on the U.S. women’s team who did the same, Megan Keller.

“Me and her had a great moment in the cafeteria after her gold medal game. We played Slovakia the next night, and it was like a late game. And we were in the pasta line — me and Megan. They were just getting ready to go out again, and I just gave her a massive hug, and I said, ‘I’m so happy for you. I’m so proud of you,’” Hughes said. 

“A couple nights later, saw her again in the [cafeteria], and we took a great picture and, uh, she just gave me a big hug and was so pumped for me as well.” 

Hughes told reporters after the game the first thing he thought about when the puck went in was Keller, who scored the golden goal for the United States women’s team against Canada three days earlier.

US WOMEN’S HOCKEY GOLD MEDALIST SAYS IT’S ‘SAD’ MEN’S TEAM HAD TO APOLOGIZE FOR OLYMPICS CONTROVERSY

The controversy surrounding the men’s team stemmed from a locker room phone call between the players and Trump right after their gold medal win over Canada. 

Trump told the men’s team after inviting them to Tuesday’s State of the Union address that he’d “have” to invite the women’s team, otherwise “I probably would be impeached.” The team laughed in response, prompting immense backlash. 

Several mainstream media outlets penned op-eds condemning the men’s team for laughing at the joke and then visiting the White House to celebrate and Trump’s State of the Union address. 

U.S. women’s hockey captain Hilary Knight said on Wednesday’s edition of ESPN’s “SportsCenter” that Trump’s “distasteful joke” has “overshadow[ed]” the women’s success.

“I thought it was sort of a distasteful joke, and, unfortunately, that is overshadowing a lot of the success, the success of just women at the Olympics carrying for Team USA and having amazing gold medal feats,” Knight said.

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“We’re just focusing on celebrating the women in our room, the extraordinary efforts, and continue to celebrate three gold medals in program history as well as the double gold for both men’s and women’s at the same time. And really not detract from that with a distasteful joke.”

Hughes’ mother, Ellen, a former Team USA player and current player development staff member, said the players only cared about “bring[ing] so much unity to a group and to a country.”

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Another winnable game was slipping away, another frustrating performance by USC unraveling in painfully familiar fashion, when Jaden Brownell lifted up from the corner for a wide-open three-pointer, offering a split-second of hope in an otherwise hopeless second half.

But the shot clanked away. A collective sigh from the cardinal-and-gold faithful rippled through Galen Center, only to be swallowed up seconds later when Nebraska’s Pryce Sandfort, who finished with 32 points, knocked down a three-pointer of his own. That’s when USC’s own arena exploded with a deafening Big Red roar, loud enough to make you forget you were in Los Angeles — or that these lifeless Trojans had once looked like a real NCAA tournament team.

There were still more than nine minutes remaining after that in Saturday’s brutal 82-67 loss, though that roar from the Nebraska faithful might as well have been the exclamation point. Whether it becomes the punctuation mark on a frustrating second season for USC under coach Eric Musselman was still to be determined.

The Trojans have lost five consecutive games as of Saturday and sit in a tie for 11th in the Big Ten. They still have two regular-season games remaining to bolster their middling tournament resume, both of which they can ill afford to lose.

A midweek matchup at Washington looms especially large. A loss to the Huskies, who are 14-15, would make climbing back from the bubble brink especially harrowing. A rivalry rematch awaits after that against UCLA.

“I still think we could have a successful season,” forward Terrance Williams II said Saturday . “I had that positive mindset coming into the season. I still have that positive mindset. The season’s not over. … We can change the trajectory of the season very quickly.”

Nothing, though, about Saturday’s second half suggested USC was poised for positive change.

The Trojans positioned themselves in the first half to make a very different statement Saturday. They took advantage of foul trouble from Nebraska point guard Sam Hoiberg and led by five points at halftime. Chad Baker-Mazara had already poured in 14 points, and they barely needed freshman Alijah Arenas, who was left out of the starting lineup and played only nine minutes.
“They had belief,” Musselman said.

Yet after shooting 52% from the field in the first half, the Trojans were suddenly unable to find the target in the second. For the first five minutes of the half, a dunk from Jacob Cofie was USC’s only basket. During another five-minute stretch in the second half, USC couldn’t even manage a dunk.

Its issues only got worse when Baker-Mazara fell hard trying to block a lay-in. He didn’t play the rest of the game, as Musselman said Baker-Mazara told the staff he was unable to go.

“They played great in the second half,” Musselman said, “and we did not play very good.”

The Trojans didn’t fare much better on the glass, either, as Nebraska more than doubled USC’s total rebounds (22 to 10) after halftime.

The defense followed suit, with Nebraska piling up points in the paint at will. Sixteen of the Huskers’ first 20 points in the second half came on either dunks or lay-ins as USC’s defense lacked any semblance of urgency.

“I feel like they came out with more energy to be honest,” Williams said. “The first couple possessions, you could see it. They wanted it more than we did.”

How that’s still the case, after several similarly frustrating second halves this season, is still unclear.

“Second halves, they’re hard,” Brownell said. “We have to accept that and get ready quicker in the locker room, get our mental right and then come in and be ready.”

But with the Trojans on the very brink of the tournament bubble, time is quickly running out on that possibility.

Merrill Kelly will once again be wearing an Arizona Diamondbacks uniform when the 2026 regular season gets underway. 

Kelly, who entered the free agent market after pitching in 10 games with the Texas Rangers in 2025, agreed to a deal to return to the Diamondbacks.

Kelly spent the first seven years of his professional career with the Diamondbacks but revealed that he received an offer from the San Diego Padres this offseason. Kelly said his decision to turn down the Padres during free agency centered on California’s higher income tax rate compared to Arizona’s.

Kelly agreed to a two-year contract worth an estimated $40 million with the Diamondbacks, according to ESPN. Although the Padres offered a comparable deal at three years instead of two, California’s 13% tax rate on income above $1 million proved a key difference.

“I don’t think it’s any secret on how much money you get taken out of your pocket when you go to California,” the right-hander told “Foul Territory.”

Kelly also has deep ties to Arizona, where he attended high school and played college baseball at Arizona State. He said finding a way back to Arizona “was always the priority.”

While Kelly said he is fond of San Diego, he was unwilling to sacrifice a significant portion of his salary to taxes. “I love San Diego,” Kelly said. “It’s just, like I said, they take too much money out of my pocket, man. The taxes over there are a different level.

“We had my numbers guy run the numbers, and it just made more sense to come home.”

Arizona’s state income tax rate is roughly 2.5%. Kelly also joked that he prefers the desert landscape to San Diego’s coastal setting.

“It worked out best for us because that was honestly our second choice,” Kelly said. “It was between here and San Diego going into the offseason. San Diego was really the only place that, if we did go somewhere, that was probably high on our list if we weren’t in Arizona. It’s like, ‘All right, let’s just hop over and take a short, six-hour drive to San Diego.’

“But, yeah, the desert is home. I guess we’re not ocean people.”

In a statement to The California Post, the Padres said the team does “not comment on contract negotiations.”

Acquired by the Rangers in July 2025, Kelly went 12-9 while splitting the season between Texas and Arizona.

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