“Rivals” star Connor Story made his debut as host of “SNL” on Saturday. The monologue was less about the actors who play hockey stars on TV and more about praising the U.S. women’s hockey team, which was scorned by the men’s team and President Donald Trump in the recent Olympics.
After the cold open, Story, who plays Russian hockey player Ilya Rozanov in HBO’s hit hockey romance TV series Heat Rivalry, co-stars Hudson Williams as Canadian hockey star Shane Hollander, begins a monologue, saying, “Come here.” Now, some of you may have seen literally everything about me on my show. This show has taught a lot of people about hockey, and it’s taught me a lot of things.” Straight women know that their sexuality is actually gay. ”
After making more jokes about the cultural phenomenon surrounding “heated rivalries” and expressing his excitement about how his acting career is exploding by appearing on “Saturday Night Live,” Story brought up brothers and U.S. men’s hockey stars Quinn and Jack Hughes, who said they haven’t watched the show yet because they’re busy with the Olympics.
“It’s about hockey, right?” Quinn Hughes said. “It’s like that,” Storey joked.
“I lost my tooth in the finals. Does that happen on your show?” Jack Hughes said. “Metaphorically speaking,” Storey replied with a knowing smile.
“I hope the hockey players are watching,” Storey said, as U.S. women’s hockey stars Megan Keller and Hilary Knight took to the stage to thunderous applause from Storey, the Hughes brothers and the Studio 8H audience.
“Don’t worry, we saw your show,” Keller said as the cheers died down.
“We were going to be the only ones in the story” on “SNL,” Knight joked, “but we thought we’d invite everyone.”
“Yeah, we thought we’d give them a little bit of time to shine,” Keller added.
The remark was a reference to the controversy that started when the men’s hockey team won the Olympic Games and prompted President Donald Trump to invite him to the State of the Union address. In a widely circulated recording of a phone call between Trump and his team, Trump can be heard saying, “We’ve got to bring the women’s team, you know that,” adding that if he didn’t invite them, “I’m pretty sure they’d probably get impeached.” Then I heard everyone laughing.
After the call, the women’s team refused to attend the State of the Union address. Since then, players on the men’s hockey team have faced backlash from fans for not speaking up on behalf of the women’s team in response to President Trump’s comments.
During a monologue on “SNL,” Story congratulated all the athletes who won gold medals at the recent Olympics.
“Thank you, the last time guys did that was 46 years ago,” Quinn Hughes said. Knight proudly added: “The last time I did that was two years before the Olympics.”
“Well done,” Jack Hughes said, adding, “But these gold medals don’t just belong to us, they belong to all hockey fans. They belong to you too.”
Storey asked if that meant he, the fictional hockey star, could touch the player, and all four answered “no.”
Watch Storrie’s “SNL” monologue featuring players from the U.S. women’s and men’s hockey teams in the video below.
