Connor Hellebuyck breaks silence on getting Presidential Medal of Freedom from Donald Trump

Connor Hellebuyck became the first hockey player to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom when U.S. President Donald Trump presented the honor to the goalie on Tuesday.

The Winnipeg Jets goalie had saved 41-of-42 shots for Team USA against Canada in Sunday's gold medal game, with the United States triumphing on that Olympic championship stage for the first time in 46 years.

Hellebuyck played a massive role. He stifled Connor McDavid and Macklin Celebrini on open breakaways, and he somehow made a last-gasp stick save against Devon Toews on what looked to be an open goal.

All told, the U.S. won 2-1 in overtime and needed every bit of what Hellebuyck provided.

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Now, we know how Hellebuyck feels about the honor from the President.

According to the Winnipeg Sun, Hellebuyck "started shaking" when he learned of the honor.

“It's still so surreal,” Hellebuyck said, via the Sun. “I was going in there to shake the President's hand, and I had no recollection or even thought that I could possibly be getting anything more than that. So when he had told me that morning that I was going to win the Presidential Medal of Freedom, my heart skipped a beat. I was stunned. I started shaking. I didn't know how to respond to that. I know I'm in my thirties, but I'm just a kid playing a hockey game, right? And the next 12 hours after that, I was on Cloud 9. It didn't feel real.”

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The President announced the news publicly at Tuesday night's State of the Union address.

For Hellebuyck, who grew up in Michigan and was an unheralded youth hockey player who ended up at UMass-Lowell and has turned into a three-time Vezina Trophy winner, it was the honor of a lifetime.

"I want to be able to tell my kids one day I walked those halls," Hellebuyck said of the White House. "Regardless of who's in office, that's a really cool thing to do. There is so much history there. I got to take a picture of the Declaration of Independence. Not everyone can say that. I got to see the Oval Office, the same desk that our founding fathers sat at. I'm answering the call for the nation to go there... and for me being able to pass that onto my kids one day is going to mean the world to me.”

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