The US men’s hockey team at the State of the Union showed proximity to Trump is never neutral

During Tuesday’s State of the Union, Donald Trump welcomed members of the US men’s national hockey team to the House gallery to chants of “U-S-A, U-S-A!”. Trump revealed that Team USA’s goaltender, Connor Hellebuyck will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. “What special champions you are,” Trump told the players, who had beaten Canada on Sunday in the final of the Winter Olympics.

In Trump’s America, proximity is never neutral.

While the hockey players were greeted with warm applause from both Republicans and Democrats, Trump had also used the team as props in his speech. “Our country is winning again,” Trump said just before he introduced them. “To prove that point, here with us tonight is a group of winners who just made the entire nation proud.”

The players first found themselves in Trump’s orbit on Sunday. Video that circulated widely online after the team’s win in Milan showed the players listening as Trump extended an invitation to the White House. Trump added: “I must tell you, we’re going to have to bring the women’s team.” Many of the US players laughed – something that was interpreted widely as derisive. “People are so negative out there,” Jack Hughes, the scorer of the US’s winning goal said later, referring to the backlash that followed the video. The team was excited to go Hughes said. “Everything is so political. We’re athletes,” he said. “When you get the chance to go to the White House and meet the president, we’re proud to be Americans, and that’s so patriotic.”

Hughes is right about one thing. With Trump, everything is political. And while it’s long been the case that sports and politics collide, these collisions have become more intense under Trump’s presidency. We seem to be endlessly discussing who is allowed to participate or who is American enough to sing at the Super Bowl. Each issue seized upon by partisans and pundits, each seemingly a separate conversation. Taken together, sports revolve around a central question of the Trump era: Who is loyal?

Last winter, Trump suddenly took a great interest in hockey. It was February, and the US were facing Canada in the NHL’s mid-season Four Nations tournament. In the weeks prior, Trump had mused about annexing Canada to make it America’s 51st state. Canada won that round, but Trump didn’t forget about hockey. In January, after Canada announced a tariff deal with China, Trump warned that China would “take over Canada” and that its first move would be to “end ice hockey.” A few weeks later during a social media rant about the Gordie Howe International Bridge connecting Ontario and Michigan, Trump did it again, speculating that China would “eat Canada alive” and that it would “eliminate ALL Ice Hockey being played in Canada and permanently eliminate The Stanley Cup.”

This wasn’t just about trade. It was about hierarchy. About who defers to whom. The comments also followed the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, upstaging Trump at Davos, and Trump subsequently withdrawing his invite for Carney to join the Board of Peace. Ultimately, Trump’s focus on hockey is wrapped up in Canada’s refusal to come to heel. Trump’s vision of the world, and of North America more specifically, is that it belongs to him – or that, at the very least, it should do as he says. Looked at this way, hockey, as Canada’s game, is just another piece of leverage, something to threaten when things aren’t going Trump’s way. Nice little game you got there, shame if something were to happen to it.

Yet, even within the men’s hockey team, the unity projected from the House gallery and the Oval Office was not total. A handful of players – including four from Minnesota, where the Trump administration implemented a hrqash immigration crackdown – were absent on Tuesday. They offered differing reasons – and none of them condemned Trump specifically – but the distance spoke louder, whether intentionally or not. The split was even more visible elsewhere. The entire US women’s national team, the other ice hockey gold medal squad, declined their invitation – gracefully, it should be noted, despite the apparent snub, but maybe with a better understanding how attendance is an affirmation. (Trump mentioned in his speech on Tuesday that the women will visit the Oval Office “soon” but there has been no official confirmation.) Showing up is a statement. So is staying away. The women’s team knows it. So does Carney.

It’s no surprise that Trump isn’t as kind to all US athletes as he has been to the men’s hockey team. Earlier in the Games, US freestyle skier Hunter Hess was asked how it felt to represent America amid ongoing brutal immigration enforcement crackdowns. “Just because I’m wearing the flag, doesn’t mean I represent everything that’s going on in the US,” Hess replied. Online, Trump rebuked the skier: “Hess, a real Loser, says he doesn’t represent his Country in the current Winter Olympics. If that’s the case, he shouldn’t have tried out for the Team, and it’s too bad he’s on it.” Everything is so political.

Hughes and others want things to be simple: athletes and politics, separate. But that’s never been the case. And now, more than ever, in Trump’s America, athletes – just like allies and enemies – are expected to take their place in the hierarchy. To prove their loyalty both to America and to the man who claims to define it. Or else.