{"id":573808,"date":"2026-02-07T22:26:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T22:26:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/573808\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T22:26:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T22:26:14","slug":"winter-olympics-2026-miracle-on-ice-captain-mike-eruzione-rebukes-skier-hunter-hess-for-comments-on-representing-u-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/573808\/","title":{"rendered":"Winter Olympics 2026: ‘Miracle on Ice’ captain Mike Eruzione rebukes skier Hunter Hess for comments on representing U.S."},"content":{"rendered":"

Remarks made by American freestyle skier Hunter Hess regarding “mixed emotions” about representing the United States in the 2026 Winter Olympics have drawn criticism<\/a> from some fans and observers.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most famous and outspoken among them is legendary 1980 U.S. ice hockey gold medalist Mike Eruzione, who posted a response to Hess on social media.<\/p>\n

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During a news conference with the U.S. freeski team in Milan on Friday, Hess, 27, said he felt conflicted because “a lot going on that I\u2019m not the biggest fan of, and I think a lot of people aren\u2019t.”<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt brings up mixed emotions to represent the U.S. right now, I think,\u201d Hess said, via Portland, Oregon’s KGW8<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s a little hard. There\u2019s obviously a lot going on that I\u2019m not the biggest fan of, and I think a lot of people aren\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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“For me, it’s more I’m representing my friends and family back home, the people that represented before me, all the things that I believe are good about the U.S.,” he added. “I think if it aligns with my moral values, I feel like I\u2019m representing it. Just because I\u2019m wearing the flag doesn\u2019t mean I represent everything that\u2019s going on in the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Those comments raised the ire of Eruzione, a captain on the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” gold medal team who scored the game-winning goal versus the Soviet Union in the medal round. He has previously shown support for Donald Trump, but in responding to Hess, he didn’t mention the president. He stated that the skier shouldn’t wear a uniform representing the U.S. if he’d prefer to represent friends and family instead.<\/p>\n

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“Hunter Hess US snowboarder saying he doesn\u2019t represent his country but his family and friends,” Eruzione posted<\/a>. “Then don\u2019t put on the USA uniform maybe just put for family and friend some athletes just don\u2019t get it.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Eruzione was criticized for appearing at a Trump rally<\/a> in 2020 with his U.S. hockey teammates and wearing a hat that said “Keep America Great.”<\/p>\n

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In response to the backlash received for his appearance, Eruzione expressed regret<\/a> for wearing the hat.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf we knew we were going to piss off this many people, we probably would not have put the hats on,\u201d Eruzione, 65, told the Washington Post.<\/a> \u201cThat\u2019s the big question here. A lot of the stuff I got was, \u2018You guys said it\u2019s not political, but when you put the hats on, you made it political.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Presumably, Hess’ remarks “made it political” in Eruzione’s view. Yet he’s not the only U.S. athlete who has voiced ambivalent sentiments toward what’s currently happening. Freestyle aerialist Chris Lillis said he wouldn’t want to represent any other country, but is “heartbroken” over current events.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI feel heartbroken about what\u2019s happened in the United States,\u201d Lillis said, via the Washington Post<\/a>. \u201cI think that, as a country, we need to focus on respecting everybody\u2019s rights and making sure that we\u2019re treating our citizens as well as anybody with love and respect. I hope that when people look at athletes competing in the Olympics, they realize that\u2019s the America that we\u2019re trying to represent.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Remarks made by American freestyle skier Hunter Hess regarding “mixed emotions” about representing the United States in the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":573809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[51,249262,249261,50,249263,52,67],"class_list":["post-573808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-headlines","tag-hunter-hess","tag-mike-eruzione","tag-news","tag-representing","tag-top-stories","tag-united-states"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116031703385221573","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}