Less than two weeks after going viral for calling Vice President JD Vance the “devil,” former ESPN host Sarah Spain is in the news again, this time for ripping Ellen Weinberg-Hughes — a consultant for the U.S. women’s hockey team and the mother of men’s Olympic stars Jack and Quinn Hughes — in a lengthy tirade where she also trashed Donald Trump and male hockey players.
Spain, who covered the women’s hockey team in Italy during this year’s Olympics, posted several videos to Bluesky on Wednesday in which she blasted the gold-winning U.S. men’s hockey team. The Hughes brothers joined several of their teammates in not only visiting Trump at the White House earlier this week but also attending the State of the Union address.
However, their trip to Washington, D.C., wasn’t without controversy, and not only because they spent time with Trump. During a FaceTime call with the team and FBI director Kash Patel following Sunday’s win over Canada, Trump joked that he needed to invite the women’s team, which also won gold, or risk facing impeachment by Democrats.
Many sports media pundits have since criticized Trump for those remarks, and Spain joined the club on Wednesday night.
2/5
— Sarah Spain ✨ (@sarahspain.com) February 25, 2026 at 10:53 AM
“I can’t believe we’re still having these same conversations,” Spain captioned the first of four videos. “I can’t believe we still have to wonder if you’re laughing at us and degrading us when we’re not in the room. I can’t believe we haven’t burned this [expletive] place down.”
Spain soon turned her attention to Weinberg-Hughes, who won a silver medal while playing on the women’s national hockey team during the 1992 World Championships. In a statement to “TODAY” earlier this week, Weinberg-Hughes cited the positive relationships between the men’s and women’s teams and how both sides publicly supported one another.
“They care about humanity,” Weinberg-Hughes said. “They care about unity, and they care about the country.”
Spain acknowledged that she does not know Weinberg-Hughes and understands Weinberg-Hughes might be trying to strike a balance between not wanting to bring “negative attention” to her sons while also wanting to defend the women’s team.
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“I’m kind of [expletive] over giving people excuses,” Spain nonetheless said. “Don’t word-salad this [expletive]. Defend your team. Say something. You don’t have to be insulting or dramatic about it; you can just say the women deserved better.”
No one from the Hughes family had publicly addressed Spain’s comments as of publication.
Spain then implied that male hockey players engage in “locker room talk” and referenced the infamous “Access Hollywood” comments that Trump made during a 2005 conversation with then-NBC host Billy Bush. It is important to note that at no point, during or after the tournament, has anyone affiliated with the men’s hockey team been accused of improper conduct or language toward female hockey players.
In a later Bluesky post, Spain criticized women’s team captain Hilary Knight, who called Trump’s comments a “distasteful joke.” However, Knight said she felt that the men’s teams had genuinely supported them throughout the Olympics, and she didn’t want that to be “overshadowed by sort of a lapse in judgment.”
USA women’s hockey gold medalist @HilaryKnight describes her team’s relationship with the USA men’s team as one with a “genuine level of support and respect” that’s being overshadowed by a “quick lapse.”
“Our achievements shouldn’t be overshadowed by anything else other than how… pic.twitter.com/0oDaQwQi9B
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) February 25, 2026
Spain then invoked former USWNT soccer captain and 2012 gold medalist Megan Rapinoe, a longtime social justice advocate who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from then-President Joe Biden in 2022.
“I think about what Rapinoe would say in this situation, and it sure as [expletive] wouldn’t be ‘They were in a tough situation,’” Spain wrote. “A tough situation would be a SURPRISING comment from a powerful/influential person. Not misogyny from a known woman-hating rapist & sexual abuser. They know & endorse him.”
Knight had not addressed Spain’s comments as of Thursday afternoon.
