USA men’s ice hockey player Brady Tkachuk has distanced himself from an AI-enhanced White House video in which he appears to disparage Canadians, saying “those words would never come out of my mouth”.
The video was published on the official White House TikTok account after the US beat Canada on Sunday to win gold at the Winter Olympics and is marked as using artificial intelligence.
It features a modified clip of Tkachuk speaking at a news conference for last year’s 4 Nations Face-Off, during which Canadians booed the US national anthem.
Tkachuk appears to say: “They booed our national anthem, so I had to come out and teach those maple-syrup-eating [expletive] a lesson. Canada, we own you little bro.”
Tkachuk is captain of the Ottawa Senators and after playing in the Canadian team’s first NHL game since the Olympics, he said: “Well, it’s clearly fake, because it’s not my voice, not my lips moving.
“I’m not in control of any of those accounts,” he added. “I know that those words would never come out of my mouth, so I can’t do anything about it.
“It’s not what I was saying. I would never say that. It’s not who I am. So I guess I don’t like that video.”
Several of Tkachuk’s team-mates have also apologised for laughing during a congratulatory call from Donald Trump, when the US president said he “probably would be impeached” if he did not invite the gold-winning women’s team as well as the men to his State of the Union address .
While the women’s captain Hilary Knight said Trump’s joke was “distasteful”, she added that “the guys were in a tough spot” and there was a “genuine level of support and respect” between the two US teams.
Tkachuk’s brother Matthew Tkachuk, who plays for the Florida Panthers, said the teams were “so close” at the Milan-Cortina Games.
“We watched other events together, we went and supported,” he said. “We love the women’s team and the women’s team loved us, and we’re so proud that we had a clean sweep of gold medals.”
US team-mate Jake Sanderson said the laughter had been “a bit of a mistake” that “got blown out of proportion a little bit”, while reserve goaltender Jeremy Swayman said “we should’ve reacted differently” and Charlie McAvoy added it was “not reflective of how we feel”.
www.bbc.com
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