Saturday Night Live leaned heavily into the sport this past weekend, with Connor Storrie — a lead from the popular hockey-romance show “Heated Rivalry” — taking on hosting duties.
During his opening monologue, Storrie welcomed onstage a quartet of American Olympic gold medalists pulled from both the male and the female hockey brackets: Megan Keller, Hilary Knight, plus the sibling pair of Quinn and Jack Hughes. Storrie first ribbed the two brothers for failing to grasp the premise of his series, after which the female skaters arrived to take aim at the controversy that had engulfed the men following their title the prior week.
The arrival of Knight alongside Keller earned a distinctly bigger ovation from the studio audience than the welcome given to the two title-winning siblings.
Keller kicked things off by assuring everyone they had, in fact, watched his program.
Storrie marveled at how neat it was to have all of them together, greeting Hilary and Megan by name.
To loud applause, Knight quipped that the night had been meant for just the pair of them, but they’d decided to bring the fellas along as well.
Keller added that they figured the guys deserved a brief turn in the spotlight.
The bit nodded to the congratulatory phone call the American men received inside their dressing room from President Trump, placed only minutes after Jack buried the overtime winner that beat Canada. On that call, the president invited the newly crowned champions to sit in on his upcoming address to Congress in the nation’s capital, and remarked that he supposed he was obliged to extend the same invitation to the equally decorated women.
The male skaters chuckled at what came across as the president belittling the gold-medal achievement of their female counterparts. Footage of the exchange went viral, and plenty of observers criticized the men for laughing along with what looked like a sexist comment from Trump, a figure with a lengthy record of demeaning statements about women.
Certain players from the male group, including netminder Jeremy Swayman and blueliner Charlie McAvoy, have since voiced remorse over how the squad reacted. The Hughes duo, by contrast, stood by the dressing-room laughter, brushing off inquiries with a shrugging line about how things simply are what they are, and grumbling that the affair had turned political.
Speaking with ESPN, Knight framed the episode as a worthwhile teaching moment about the way society discusses women — across both athletics and the wider professional world — stressing that women are not inferior and that their accomplishments deserve to be judged solely on their own merit rather than diminished by anything else. Her remarks ran on ESPN.
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Storrie then steered the sketch toward the fact that the U.S. captured gold across both competitions, a dual feat never before achieved in American Olympic hockey. He told the players how meaningful it was to host genuine legends of the game, noting his show reaches audiences not typically reflected in the sport, and acknowledged that each of their teams had just taken the top prize.
Quinn Hughes shot back that the previous men’s gold had come 46 years earlier.
To another round of laughter, Knight countered that the women had managed the feat merely two Olympics ago.
Jack Hughes responded that, jab aside, the medals belonged to every hockey supporter — theirs included.
The segment wrapped with the five linking arms before Storrie sent the broadcast to commercial. One more nod to the sport arrived deeper into the broadcast, when the host shared the screen once more with his “Heated Rivalry” colleague Hudson Williams for a bit they called “Ice Skating.”
That bit centered on a couple — portrayed by Veronika Slowikowska and Tommy Brennan — working through plans to get engaged out on an open-air rink before a boisterous bachelor party crew, played by Mikey Day, Ben Marshall, Williams, and Storrie, barged in.
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All four visiting players reappeared with the SNL ensemble and the two hosts to deliver the show’s closing goodnights.
After wearing national colors during the broadcast’s opening stretch, the two switched into their PWHL sweaters — the Seattle Torrent and the Boston Fleet, respectively.
The journey to host the show in NYC proved an easy one for Knight, whom the Torrent had recently shifted onto long-term injured reserve. Keller, on the other hand, had to dash across the country after a 3-2 shootout victory by the Fleet in Ottawa that same afternoon.
Jack, too, had suited up that same day, flying back alongside New Jersey following a road win over St. Louis by a 3-1 count. Quinn, meanwhile, was idle, having just finished consecutive games for Minnesota that pitted the Wild against Colorado and then Utah’s Mammoth across the preceding Thursday and Friday.