President Trump hosted dozens of Winter Olympians and Paralympians for a White House reception, celebrating a combined 57 medals won at the 2026 Milano Cortina Games while calling on Congress to pass legislation overhauling the governance of college sports. The event, originally planned for the stone patio near the Rose Garden, was moved indoors to the East Room because of heavy evening rains. Team USA athletes gave Trump a Team USA jacket and sneakers during the celebration, and he invited attendees to tour the Oval Office afterward.
Trump told the assembled athletes they had sacrificed years of their lives and countless early mornings to be the best in the world, according to the Associated Press, which reported the event through writer Will Weissert. He called the group perhaps the greatest in American history, and said his administration has done a lot to help save women's sports while working to save college sports overall. Team USA at the event included coaches, staff and other representatives alongside nearly half of the athletes who had competed in Italy.
Hockey Golds Anchor the Celebration
The centerpiece of the evening was hockey. The U.S. Men's Ice Hockey team defeated Canada 2-1 in overtime on February 22, 2026, capturing the program's first Olympic gold since the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” squad, with 20 of its 25 roster members having played NCAA college hockey, according to NCAA.org. That victory earned the team a roughly two-minute bipartisan standing ovation during Trump's State of the Union address, and the squad had also visited Trump at the White House in February.
Two days earlier, the U.S. Women's Ice Hockey team completed an American sweep of both tournaments in Milan, beating Canada by the identical 2-1 overtime scoreline on February 20, per CBS News. Women's team players Abbey Murphy and Joy Dunne attended Thursday's celebration, but the team as a whole had declined an invitation to Trump's State of the Union speech, citing previously scheduled academic and personal commitments.
Stolz's Record-Setting Run Gets Star Billing
Trump singled out speedskater Jordan Stolz as the single most-decorated American Olympian of the Games. Stolz, a 21-year-old Wisconsin native, won gold in both the 500-meter and 1,000-meter events with Olympic record times of 33.77 seconds and 1:06.28, plus a silver in the 1,500-meter, becoming the first male skater since Eric Heiden in 1980 to sweep the 500m and 1,000m at a single Olympics, according to details compiled by Wikipedia. Hoodline reported on the Kewaskum native's haul in February, when his performance left him as Team USA's most decorated athlete of the Games.
Not every invited athlete showed up eager. Ice dancers Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik, who finished fifth in figure skating at Milano Cortina, indicated in a social media video that they did not want to come to the White House. Kolesnik, a Ukraine native who gained U.S. citizenship shortly before the Games, had relied on a GoFundMe campaign to bring family members from Kharkiv to watch him compete, according to AP News, while Zingas previously skated for Cyprus before joining Team USA. Hoodline had previously profiled Zingas among Michigan Olympians ahead of the Games.
Trump Pushes Congress on College Sports Bill
Beyond the medal count, Trump used the reception to push a legislative priority, calling on Congress to pass a bill overhauling college sports governance and promising to sign it once passed. That call lines up with active movement on Capitol Hill: Senate Majority Leader John Thune filed cloture on the bipartisan Protect College Sports Act of 2026, moving the bill forward under a national Name, Image, and Likeness framework intended to protect women's and non-revenue Olympic sports, according to the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. The bill follows an April executive order Trump signed aimed at stabilizing collegiate sports governance and NIL arrangements.
Team USA's overall showing in Milano Cortina totaled 33 Olympic medals — 12 gold, 9 silver and 12 bronze — marking the nation's best overall Winter Olympic tally since the 2010 Vancouver Games. Combined with Paralympic honors, that built the full 57-medal count celebrated at the White House. Ahead of the Paralympic opening ceremony in Verona, Italy, Trump had appointed Veterans Affairs Secretary Douglas Collins to lead the official U.S. Presidential Delegation, a group that included military veterans, government officials and former Paralympic gold medalists, per the American Presidency Project.
Looking Ahead to LA and Salt Lake City
Trump also looked past Milano Cortina to future Games on American soil, noting that Los Angeles will host the 2028 Summer Games and that Salt Lake City will host the 2034 Winter Olympics. The administration has already set up a dedicated White House task force, established by executive order in August 2025, to oversee federal coordination, security and sports diplomacy for the Los Angeles Games — the first Summer Olympics on U.S. soil since Atlanta 1996. In Utah, the University of Utah announced plans this spring to build an on-campus Olympic research center studying climate science, athlete health and public policy ahead of 2034, a step Hoodline covered in its piece on the university's Olympic research push.
Thursday's reception followed a pattern the White House had already set earlier in the year, having hosted the Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers in January and February, spotlighting players like Matthew Tkachuk before he went on to compete for Team USA's men's hockey squad in Milan. Trump also promised to hand out special coins to the athletes gathered in the East Room, closing out an evening that mixed medal-count bragging rights with a direct pitch to lawmakers on the future of college athletics.
