President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau may have one source of contention when the prime minister visits the White House next month: whose country is better at hockey.
Obama welcomed the Chicago Blackhawks, the reigning Stanley Cup champions, to the White House on Thursday and took the opportunity to rib the Canadian leader when talking about the Stanley Cup trophy.
“We’ve got a state dinner with Canada coming up, so we may just leave it right in the middle of the room,” Obama said to applause from the Blackhawks standing behind him. “We’ll see. We could gloat a little bit.”
Afterward, Trudeau tweeted that he would bring his own hockey souvenir to the state dinner on March 10.
“.@POTUS I’ll come with Canada’s Olympic hockey golds from, oh, how about 2002 & 2010?” he tweeted, in reference to Canada’s two victories over the United States at the Winter Olympics.
Obama and Trudeau, who met for the first time in November, appear to have a friendly relationship. In December, Trudeau told The New York Times Magazine that he was “looking forward to having a beer” with the President.