{"id":7671,"date":"2026-02-25T23:19:30","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T23:19:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/?p=7671"},"modified":"2026-02-25T23:19:30","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T23:19:30","slug":"they-earned-every-bit-of-that-spotlight-%f0%9f%87%ba%f0%9f%87%b8%f0%9f%94%a5-breaks-her-silence-ellen-hughes-mother-of-jack-hughes-and-quinn-hughes-has-responded-after-o","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/?p=7671","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThey Earned Every Bit of That Spotlight.\u201d \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8\ud83d\udd25 BREAKS HER SILENCE \u2014 Ellen Hughes, mother of Jack Hughes and Quinn Hughes, has responded after online buzz erupted over a joke about inviting the U.S. women\u2019s hockey team to the State of the Union. The comment surfaced just as both Team USA squads captured historic Olympic gold in Milan \u2014 a timing that fueled intense debate across social media. Now, in a newly surfaced video, Ellen addresses the moment directly. Her tone? Calm. Firm. Focused. Rather than engage the political noise, she redirected attention to the athletes \u2014 their work, their sacrifice, and what the medals truly represent. It wasn\u2019t long. It wasn\u2019t dramatic. But the clip is spreading fast \u2014 and viewers say her words hit harder than anyone expected. Watch the video below \ud83d\udc47"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Hughes brothers\u2019 mom is a former hockey player in her own right and serves as player development consultant for Team USA women\u2019s ice hockey.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n
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Ellen Hughes, mom of Olympic men\u2019s hockey stars Jack and Quinn Hughes and player development consultant for Team USA women\u2019s ice hockey, shared her reaction to the viral video of President Trump congratulating the men\u2019s team on the phone before joking about inviting the gold-medal winning women\u2019s squad to the State of the Union<\/p>\n

\u201cI must tell you, we\u2019re going to have to bring the women\u2019s team, you do know that,\u201d Trump told the men\u2019s team before adding if he didn\u2019t, \u201cI do believe I probably would be impeached.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Asked about her response to the comment, Ellen Hughes said on TODAY Feb. 24 that \u201cat the end of the day, it\u2019s just about the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese players, both the men and women, can bring so much unity to a group and to a country,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople that cheered on that don\u2019t watch hockey, people that have politics on one side or on the other side, and that\u2019s all both the men\u2019s team and the women\u2019s team care about.\u201d<\/p>\n

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She also spoke about the \u201csynergy\u201d between the two squads.<\/p>\n

\"Jack<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you could see what we see from the inside, and the men and women sharing, you know, dorm rooms and halls and flex floors and the camaraderie and the synergy and the way the women cheered on the men and the way the men cheered on the women \u2014\u00a0that\u2019s what it\u2019s all about,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd the other things they cannot control. They care about humanity. They care about unity and they care about the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

The men and women\u2019s hockey teams each won gold medals at the\u00a0Milan Cortina Winter Olympics. Jack Hughes scored the game-wining goal in the gold medal matchup against Canada, giving the United States its\u00a0first gold medal\u00a0in men\u2019s hockey since 1980. The women\u2019s team also beat Canada to\u00a0win the gold medal.<\/p>\n

Ellen Hughes marveled at the success of both teams.<\/p>\n

\"Jack<\/p>\n

\u201cIt couldn\u2019t have gone better,\u201d she said. \u201cBoth teams going undefeated. We couldn\u2019t have written a better story, and I hope everybody just understands what we did in the moment, both the men and the women to bring this country together and let everybody cheer in the same direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, she said it\u2019s hard to absorb everything that happened in Milan.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt still seems surreal,\u201d she said. \u201c \u2026 But I couldn\u2019t be prouder. I couldn\u2019t be prouder of what the men\u2019s team did, and what the woman\u2019s team did.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Jack<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I watched the women win gold in overtime, I thought it was the most nervous I\u2019ve ever been in my life,\u201d she added. \u201cAnd then I had to do it a couple of days over when the men did it to us as well and took us to overtime. But what special moments for a bunch of amazing women and a bunch of amazing men, and to win gold twice, it just says so much for USA hockey and where our sport is in this great country.\u201d<\/p>\n

The day after the video of the call between the men\u2019s team and Trump circulated on Feb. 22, Team USA\u2019s women\u2019s team\u00a0declined the president\u2019s invitation\u00a0to go to the State of the Union.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are sincerely grateful for the invitation extended to our gold medal\u2013winning U.S. Women\u2019s Hockey Team and deeply appreciate the recognition of their extraordinary achievement,\u201d a USA Hockey spokesperson said Feb. 23. \u201cDue to the timing and previously scheduled academic and professional commitments following the Games, the athletes are unable to participate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"All<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were honored to be included and are grateful for the acknowledgment,\u201d the spokesperson added.<\/p>\n

Jack and Quinn Hughes appeared on TODAY via video call shortly after their mom on Feb. 24 and spoke more about the relationship between the men\u2019s and women\u2019s team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad you brought up the women because it was amazing to spend some time with them, too,\u201d Quinn Hughes said. \u201cAnd then obviously watch them, me and Jack were there, we watched them win the gold medal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey came to our game and were able to watch us,\u201d he added. \u201cSo just the support back and forth, just to get to know them a little better was special, too.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Hughes brothers\u2019 mom is a former hockey player in her own right and serves as player development consultant for Team USA women\u2019s ice hockey. Ellen Hughes,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7672,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7671"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7673,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7671\/revisions\/7673"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}