Photos by Chris Gordon

Hockey, thankfully, is nonpartisan. Sports is one thing Americans can set aside politics for. Instead of hating our neighbor because he’s on the other side of the aisle, we can hate him because he’s a Flyers fan. With that in mind, please no angry political comments. We’re still a hockey blog.

Today I covered the ceremony to honor the 2013 Stanley Cup-winning Blackhawks at the White House. It’s a decades-old presidential tradition to honor the champions of major American professional and college sports — even the winners of the Little League World Series. Today’s event was the 55th time a team has visited during the Barack Obama presidency. Annoyingly, it’s also the second Blackhawks trip. Normally a team visits when they’re in town to play the local DC team, though that wasn’t the case today. The Blackhawks don’t come to Verizon Center until right before the playoffs in mid-April, so the team used one of their odd days in between home games to make the trip.

As usual, the President gave a short speech honoring the team. In this case, since President Obama is from Chicago, he gloated a bit on that front.

“Since I’ve been president, only one team has brought a world championship to my hometown of Chicago,” Obama said. “Three years ago, the ‘Hawks won their first Stanley Cup in 49 years. And keep in mind, the Cubs have been waiting for 105, so 49 might have not seemed so bad. But luckily, the second Stanley Cup came just a little bit quicker.”

He then talked about some Blackhawks players we don’t care about and made a joke about using a hockey stick to break Washington gridlock. Ray Emery, in attendance with his former team, must’ve appreciated that.

Best pool report ever. @EvanMcSan: “FIVE OMG THINGS OBAMA SAID TO THE CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS.” pic.twitter.com/R3wpZhdbKg

— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner) November 4, 2013

Below, take a look at my photos from the event. Why don’t the Caps do this some time?