The USA have won the Olympic ice hockey title. © APA/afp / JULIEN DE ROSA

Even the FBI director is celebrating with the gold medal heroes.

The US ice hockey professionals celebrated their Olympic victory over arch-rival Canada with a special guest in the locker room.

February 23, 2026

From: dpa

A video shows FBI Director Kash Patel celebrating wildly with NHL players in Milan. He can be seen exuberantly drinking from a beer bottle, splashing the remaining beverage around him, and slamming his fist on the table before a player presented him with a gold medal. Patel then joined the athletes in singing the patriotic US song "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue."

“To the very concerned media,” Patel later wrote on the X platform: “Yes, I love America and was deeply honored when my friends, the newly crowned gold medalists of Team USA, invited me into the locker room to celebrate this historic moment with the guys.” In another post, he had thanked the US team for representing “the greatest country in the world and the greatest game ever invented.” Patel is a big ice hockey fan.

US President Trump congratulates over the phone

The US team defeated Canada 2-1 in overtime to secure their third Olympic gold medal. The victory came exactly 46 years to the day after the so-called "Miracle on Ice," when an American amateur team defeated the seemingly invincible Soviet Union in Lake Placid in 1980, laying the foundation for their gold. After the triumph in Italy, US President Donald Trump even called the players in the locker room to congratulate them, as coach Mike Sullivan recounted.