President Donald Trump made a very important phone call on Sunday — a call to the locker room in Milan, Italy — to congratulate the United States men’s hockey team after they clinched their first gold medal in nearly half a century.
Video circulated on X of the team receiving the president’s phone call in the locker room as they celebrated their overtime victory over rival Canada, and the players responded with cheers and laughter as he congratulated them on a job well done.
You can hear the genuine pride in Donald Trumps voice when he called the Team USA Hockey Team pic.twitter.com/ch6GbXShwh
— Harrison Krank (@HarrisonKrank) February 23, 2026
“By the way, your goalie played … not bad,” Trump could be heard saying of goaltender Connor Hellebuyck, and several of the players laughed and cheered. “I have seen hockey goalies have slightly worse games than you did. Unbelievable – and you were all unbelievable. And that team is pretty good you played, I don’t know if you have to play them again any time soon.”
“I’ll tell you what, I just told my people two minutes ago, I didn’t know they’d be calling, I said we’re giving the State of the Union speech on Tuesday night,” Trump continued. “I could send a military plane or something, but if you would like to, it’s the coolest night, it’s the biggest speech —”
Several of the players interrupted as Trump was talking to say, “We’re in!”
“Can you pick us up in Miami on Tuesday morning?” one asked.
Trump said that FBI Director Kash Patel — who could be seen in the video as well — would help get the necessary plans moving to get Team USA to the State of the Union.
“The nice thing about being president, is I can tell you, you don’t have to worry about the weather or landing,” Trump added, prompting more laughter from the team. “We don’t care if it’s snowing, if it’s the worst blizzard, you’ll be sailing through that sucker just like you did on the ice.”
“Thank you, Mr. President!” one shouted then.
Trump went on to joke about an upcoming visit to the White House, saying that he would “have to” also invite the women’s team — who also defeated Canada in their gold-medal match days earlier — and getting more laughs from around the locker room when he predicted he’d be impeached if he didn’t.
“Congratulations, that was an unbelievable game,” Trump said as they wrapped up the call. “I don’t know one person that wasn’t — everybody that called me said, ‘I’m watching the hockey game,’ I don’t know of anybody that wasn’t. You’re going to be proud of that game for fifty years as you grow older, I mean, it was amazing. Congratulations, we love you guys, and I hope to see you!”
“I’m going to sake hands with everybody, but I gotta shake hands with that goalie,” Trump concluded, and the room exploded again with laughter and cheers.
“We’ll see you Tuesday night, Mr. President,” one said.
“I’m driving the bus, boss,” Patel quipped as the video came to an end.
“He just spoke to the group expressing how proud he was of the group and congratulating everybody on the win. Obviously this game in a lot of ways was an inspiration to our country,” Coach Mike Sullivan said of the president’s call. “I can’t tell you how many texts I’ve received over the last day or so about watch parties at 8 in the morning. I think from a viewership standpoint in the United States, there were a lot of people paying attention, the president included.”