Is a photo that shows the US and Canadian women's Olympic hockey teams visiting Canadian Prime Minister Carney real? No, that's not true: An online detection tool rated the image 99.9% likely to be AI generated, and there are telltale signs in the photo that it is not real.
The claim appeared in a February 24, 2026 post on X (archived here). It opened:
Champions Visit!
The USA Hockey team and the Canada Hockey team got to visit Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada in honor of their Gold and Silver Medals! #USAHockey #WinterOlympics
This is what the image looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of X.)
The image of the women has several obvious signs of being AI-generated. The fingers on the women all seem to be the same with the same rings. The word "Canada" is misspelled on the jersey of the woman in the front row, as this screenshot shows (red circle added by Lead Stories):
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of X.)
The medals the USA women's hockey team were awarded at the Olympics did not have red and blue ribbons as shown in the photo on X, they had blue ribbons as an image posted by USA hockey (archived here) shows:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of USA Hockey website.)
Lead Stories uploaded the picture to the Hive Moderation AI-generated content detection tool for analysis (archived here). Hive scored it 99.9% likely to be AI-generated content, as this screenshot shows:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of Hive Moderation website.)
A Google lens search for the photo did not find any news outlets or legitimate social media accounts that published the image. Had the women's team decline Trump's invitation and instead met with the prime minister of Canada, it would have been major news. A search of Google News (archived here) and Yahoo! News (archived here) did not find any matching reports of such a meeting.
The USA Women's Hockey team turned down an invitation from President Donald Trump to visit The White House and attend the State of the Union address on Feb. 24, 2026, which they said was "due to the timing and previously scheduled academic and professional commitments," as the New York Times (archived here) reported. This followed Trump's call to the USA men's hockey team where he invited them to the White House following their gold medal win and then said, "I must tell you, we're going to have to bring the women's team, you do know that," and also said that he'd "probably be impeached" if he didn't invite the women's team, according to the New York Times.
