Flavor Flav is back in USA Hockey’s corner. The rapper offered to fund the squad’s trip to next week’s ESPY Awards — where the 2026 Olympic gold medalists are nominated for Best Team.
In response to ESPN’s limited invites, Flav pledged to arrange travel, makeup, and wardrobe for the full team after telling captain Hilary Knight he wanted to see them there together.
“The ESPYs offer ALL teams the same number of invites to rep the team at the awards, leaving many out,” he posted. “These women deserve to represent and celebrate together.”
Hotel heiress and former high school ice hockey player Paris Hilton also got in on the action. She promised the players 2.5 million Hilton Honors Points to cover their visit to New York.
“Flav, this is so iconic!” Hilton wrote. “A lot of people don't know this, but I played ice hockey in high school and loved it... I would love to help these amazing women out too.”
The news comes ahead of MGM Resorts and Flavor Flav’s SHE Weekend celebration. Set for July 16th, the Las Vegas party honors elite US women’s sports athletes.
“Letz continue to celebrate the United States women’s gold medal hockey team together and let them celebrate ALL together,” Flav continued. “I have my team working on all the arrangements now.”
The US women’s hockey team is getting a parade, as Las Vegas greenlit rapper Flavor Flav’s SHE Weekend celebrating athletes in women’s sports.
The Las Vegas Strip parade kicks off July 16th, starting at the Bellagio Hotel and ending at Toshiba Plaza, with invites out to some of women’s sport’s biggest names.
“I just want to say thank you for giving me the opportunity,” Flav told Clark County officials. “I am a girl dad and I am a big supporter of women’s sports.”
The idea for the weekend dates to Flav reaching out to Team USA, looking to honor the hockey team’s gold medal win after they declined a White House visit.
“If the USA Women’s Hockey team wants a real celebration and invite,,, I’ll host them in Las Vegas,” he tweeted in February.
“I’m sure I can get a hotel and airline to help me out here and celebrate these women for real for real.”
Laila Edwards is preparing for the next step in her women’s ice hockey career, confirming that she’ll enter the PWHL draft after graduating from Wisconsin this year.
Edwards, a three-time NCAA champion with the Badgers, will graduate on May 9th with a 4.0 GPA and a degree in social welfare. As she recently told Good Morning America, going pro is now the plan, with the PWHL draft set for late June.
“Pro? That’s the plan,” Edwards said. “Entering the draft at the end of June.”
The forward has played a key role in the Badgers’ recent success, while also helping Team USA win gold at the 2026 Winter Olympics.
The 22-year-old made history in Milan, when she became Team USA’s first Black woman goal-scorer in February’s 5-0 group-stage win over Canada. Opening up about her experience, Edwards pointed to the impact she hopes to have — both on and off the ice.
“I think representation matters, so to be that representation means the world,” she said. “That is the greatest reward, by far… the inspiration. It’s everything.”
Edwards also emphasized how she wants to be remembered as her career continues to develop.
“I’m super competitive. I love winning,” she said. “But I want to leave a legacy about who I was as a role model, a leader, and a person.”
Edwards is expected to be one of the top players to watch in the 2026 PWHL Draft — alongside fellow USA Hockey and Wisconsin teammate Caroline Harvey.
She also added that her long-term plans extend beyond hockey, pointing to a future focused on helping others.
“Whatever I’m going to do with that, I don’t know yet,” Edwards said of her Bachelor’s degree. “Just the idea of helping people who need help.”
Team USA hero Hilary Knight is back on the ice, returning to the PWHL for the first time since January after the Seattle Torrent removed the Olympic gold medalist from the team's long-term injured reserve list on Sunday.
Along with her second career gold and fifth overall Olympic medal, Knight also picked up a torn MCL in Milan last month, powering through the tournament before returning Stateside to rehab her knee.
The 36-year-old team captain returned to Seattle's top line in the Torrent's 2-0 Sunday loss to the Ottawa Charge, registering four shots on goal in just under 22 minutes of play.
Knight, who became Team USA's all-time Olympic goals and points leader in Milan, enters the final stretch of the 2025/26 PWHL season with three goals and seven assists on the Torrent's stat sheet.
While Seattle will be happy to have its captain back, the last-place PWHL expansion team is likely more focused on the draft than the playoffs, with the Torrent a full 11 points below the postseason line after racking up just 22 points through 23 games played.
How to watch Hilary Knight and the Seattle Torrent in PWHL action
Seattle's debut season has already made history, and Knight and her Torrent will make even more this weekend when they face off against the New York Sirens in the PWHL's first-ever game in Manhattan's legendary Madison Square Garden (MSG).
With Seattle holding a 2-1 record against New York, the MSG crowd will look to lift the Sirens to a win to even the series.
The Torrent will take on the Sirens in the iconic arena's first-ever ticketed pro women's hockey event at 8 PM ET on Saturday, with live coverage streaming on YouTube.
USA Hockey captain Hilary Knight opened up this week, telling CBS Mornings on Monday that she played with a torn MCL at the 2026 Winter Olympics — and skated through the injury to a gold medal.
"To be able to play through injury was definitely a mental sort of gymnastic challenge for myself — and also physical," said Knight on the morning show. "We've got some amazing support staff that did their best to get me out there and perform at my best, as best as I could."
Knight's best translates to the USA's best, as the 36-year-old became the all-time top US scorer during last month's Olympics when she slotted in the game-tying goal that sent the team's 2-1 gold medal win over Canada into its decisive overtime.
"I'm not walking around the best," Knight said about her injury. "I'm missing a few games for the Seattle Torrent now."
Her club team placed the PWHL pioneer on their long-term injured reserve, with Hilary Knight joining her USA teammate and Minnesota Frost captain Kendall Coyne Schofield on the third-year pro league's injured list for the foreseeable future.
The Torrent currently sit last in the 2025/26 PWHL standings, while the two-time reigning champion Frost are currently in third place — just five points below the league-leading Montréal Victoire — with just under two months left in regular-season play.
Fans can now call a special hotline to congratulate the US women's hockey team on their Olympic gold medal victory, with the toll-free number 1-833-SHE-WON1 already receiving hundreds of messages since its Tuesday launch.
Jennifer Bett Communications and Cosmopolitan created the hotline, intending to refocus attention to the squad's Olympic achievement after a different phone call overshadowed the win. On Sunday, President Trump made derisive remarks about the women's team while on a congratulatory phone call with the gold medal-winning men's team. The women's team subsequently declined a White House invitation due to scheduling conflicts.
"This hotline is essentially a giant collective thank-you from fans everywhere," Jennifer Bett Communications founder Jennifer Meyer told Fast Company, as her firm coordinates with USA Hockey's communications department to deliver messages directly to the players.
Many callers are young girls who play hockey, with one caller disclosing that boys in her class make fun of her for playing the sport. "But you guys just rebuilt my confidence on and off the ice," she told the Olympians.
Other callers include boy's hockey players, parents, and sports fans, with Meyer describing the response as "overwhelming, in the best possible way."
Following the aftermath of the White House invitation controversy, the new hotline aims to close the recognition gap for women's sports athletes.
"We refused to let a single moment pass where these women felt their gold was anything less than the biggest story in the country," Meyer said.
The women's hockey team defeated Canada 2-1 in overtime at the Milano-Cortina Olympics, with Megan Keller scoring the overtime winner after captain Hilary Knight tied the game late in regulation. It marks the third Olympic gold medal for the US and the first since 2018.
Acclaimed actor Stanley Tucci hosted the US women's hockey team for lunch in Milan earlier this month, shortly before footage of the men's team eating McDonald's at the White House sparked widespread fan reaction.
USA Hockey posted photos on Instagram showing Tucci dining with the women's Olympic team on February 10th, captioning the image "Lunch with @stanleytucci…an absolute dream for members." The post subsequently earned more than 90,000 likes and 574 comments.
The 65-year-old actor is known for his roles in The Devil Wears Prada as well as hosting the food series Searching for Italy. He is also an Olympic sports enthusiast, rubbing elbows with gold medal-winning women's hockey stars Hilary Knight and Kendall Coyne Schofield during the Milan lunch.
Meanwhile, a video showing the US men's hockey team eating McDonald's at President Trump's White House recently circulated on Reddit and social media. In the clip, players in navy "USA" shirts sat around a long table stacked with burgers and fries.
Fans were quick to point out the difference between the two victory meals. One user tweeted that the women's lunch was "infinitely cooler than a White House visit," while another fan said they would "give anything to share a meal with stanley tucci."
While both US teams won Olympic gold medals, the conflicting meals have followed the conversation off the ice.
US captain Hilary Knight criticized comments Trump made about the women's hockey team on Wednesday, as the Olympic gold medalist called the President's words a "distasteful joke" during a SportsCenter appearance.
Trump made the comment during a congratulatory call to the men's hockey team, as the players celebrated their Olympic gold medal win. He invited the men's team to the State of the Union address at the White House, then joked he would have to invite the women's hockey team too or face impeachment. Several men's players laughed at Trump's remarks, drawing public criticism after the video went viral.
Knight later said Trump's comment overshadowed the women's team's Olympic achievements. "I thought it was sort of a distasteful joke and unfortunately that is overshadowing a lot of the success," she told the ESPN broadcast, emphasizing celebrating accomplishments rather than focusing on lapses in support.
Knight led Team USA to its third Olympic gold this year, scoring the tying goal against Canada in the final game's last two minutes. Megan Keller then netted the overtime winner to secure the 2-1 victory — and the Knight's second gold medal.
The 36-year-old also became the most decorated player in US women's hockey history, capping her Olympic career ranked first among US skaters in goals (15) and points (33) over five Winter Games.
With the PWHL and NCAA hockey returning to the ice this week, the women's team opted to decline their White House invitation.
"Due to the timing and previously scheduled academic and professional commitments following the Games, the athletes are unable to participate," the team stated Monday.
Canada hockey captain Marie-Philip Poulin left it all on the ice in Thursday's gold medal match.
Despite battling through a lower-body injury that forced her to miss two preliminary games, the 34-year-old veteran's heroic effort fell short. After US captain Hilary Knight scored the equalizer near the end of regulation time, Team USA topped their northern rival 2-1 in overtime to claim the Olympic gold medal — forcing Canada to settle for silver.
With injury limiting her mobility, Poulin broke the Olympic women's goal-scoring record just days earlier, registering two goals against Switzerland in the semifinal. She reached 20 career Olympic goals in the win, surpassing former teammate Hayley Wickenheiser's previous record.
Canada led for nearly 40 minutes Thursday, after Kristin O'Neill scored a short-handed goal in the second period. O'Neill's tally marked Team USA's first goal allowed in over 352 minutes of play — a new Olympic hockey record. Goaltender Ann-Renee Desbiens then kept the US scoreless through regulation, until Hilary Knight's deflection found the back of the net in the final two minutes.
"This one hurts," Poulin admitted after the loss. "We wanted to bring it back to Canada. We showed up and played hard until the end, but we came up short."
The defeat represents Canada's eighth consecutive loss to the US, a streak that dates back to the 2025 World Championships. Head coach Troy Ryan subsequently assembled a veteran-heavy Olympic roster that averaged three years older than youthful Team USA.
As for Poulin, her future remains uncertain. While the decorated captain may have played her final Olympic game, Canada hockey must now look ahead to 2030.
"We wanted to play relentless, in-their-face hockey, and that's what we did," an emotional Poulin said. "We came up short, but I'm truly, truly proud of this group."
Team USA got it done on Thursday, becoming the 2026 Olympic women's hockey champions with a comeback 2-1 overtime win over rival Canada.
Canada's Kristen O'Neill opened the scoring early in the second period, with her 1-0 lead holding until just outside the final two minutes of regulation time.
USA captain Hilary Knight then registered the equalizer — becoming the nation's top scorer in Olympic history — before Megan Keller slotted in the game-winner four minutes in to sudden-death overtime.
Though either Canada or the US has earned every one of the sport's eight Olympic titles, Thursday's gold is the third for Team USA, who topped the inaugural podium at the 1998 Nagano Games before snapping a 20-year drought with a second gold in PyeongChang.
USA Hockey's 2026 campaign will go down as one of the most dominant Olympic runs on record, with the US tallying a 33-2 goal differential — including five shutouts — through their seven matches in Milan.
"I've been on some great teams, with a lot of great teammates, great players, Hall-of-Famers," US veteran Kendall Coyne Schofield said. "But this one is special."
The USA's stacked roster ultimately claimed four of the Top-5 spots on the Olympic stat sheet, where Keller and University of Wisconsin star Caroline Harvey each posted a tournament-leading nine points — a run that saw Harvey also honored as the 2026 Games' MVP.
As for 36-year-old Knight, the USA hockey legend wraps her final Olympics with a Hollywood ending, capping an historic international career with an engagement and a gold medal.
"It's been an incredible ride," she said on Thursday. "I have to soak this all in because this room is just so special, this team is so special. This is the best US hockey team I've ever been a part of. That is just so tremendous."