On most Sunday nights, on the top floor of a parking garage in Arlington, Virginia, a few dozen men gather at an ice rink to play hockey. It’s part of the area’s adult recreational league – also known as a beer league for the beverage consumed before, during and after games. The puck drops at 9:30 p.m.
During a recent championship match, fewer than 20 people were in the stands, mostly friends and family of the players. Along with three federal agents.
On the ice that night, as he is most Sunday nights, wearing number 22 and playing defense was FBI Director Kash Patel. Long before he rose to become President Donald Trump’s FBI chief, Patel was a mainstay in the Arlington hockey league, playing for roughly a decade.
Amid some of the former college and professional players in the league, Patel’s talent is on the lower end of the spectrum, according to those who have played against him. Some described his game as a stay-at-home, shot-blocking defender – not someone who is likely to impress with his skating or scoring ability.
Patel, 46, is a passionate hockey fan. He played in high school on Long Island and volunteered as a coach for DC-area youth teams. Along with his Sunday night games, he also plays in the annual Congressional Hockey Challenge, which pits lawmakers and administration officials against lobbyists. His personal X account is filled almost entirely with hockey tweets.
FBI Director Kash Patel plays hockey
But his rise from a mid-level Justice Department lawyer, to a fairly anonymous House committee aide and White House official during the first Trump administration, to the highly scrutinized leader of the country’s top law enforcement agency, has afforded Patel more access to his favorite sport.
He’s become friendly with several current and former NHL players. When Washington Capitals star Alex Ovechkin was chasing Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goals record last year, Patel attended the final two games at the invitation of Gretzky, who has remained friends with Trump despite backlash in his native Canada.
The FBI director’s cultivation of the hockey elite has stirred controversy, particularly after a video of him chugging beer in the Team USA locker room went viral after the Olympics gold-medal game – raising questions about Patel’s use of FBI resources for what appeared to be a fan’s personal trip. The FBI has maintained that Patel was in Milan in an official capacity and held six public events and two classified events, including meetings related to the Olympic security apparatus.
Patel’s mixing of work and pleasure has divided some FBI employees and also people around the NHL – a league that has historically tried to stay away from the political fray but has now had to navigate the fraught publicity of Patel’s hockey fandom.
The NHL has tried to thread the needle between welcoming him at games, like any other fan, and not highlighting his presence so as to not make a political statement, officials said.
The video of Patel enthusiastically downing beer in the locker room at the Olympics has also drawn renewed scrutiny after The Atlantic reported last week that Patel has alarmed some colleagues with alleged episodes of excessive drinking and unexplained absences. Patel on Monday filed a $250 million defamation suit against the magazine and the reporter, Sarah Fitzpatrick.
Patel addressed the allegations at a press conference Tuesday. Speaking alongside acting attorney general Todd Blanche, Patel lashed out at reporters, defended his time as FBI director and reminded everyone of the importance of hockey in his life.
“I’m like an everyday American who loves his country, loves the sport of hockey. And champions my friends when they raise a gold medal and invite me in to celebrate,” Patel said
Inside the FBI, some employees regularly make jokes about Patel’s hockey obsession, along with his penchant for flying on FBI aircraft. If the director is skipping a meeting, it’s likely because he’s going to a hockey game, they sometimes joke. (The FBI director is required to use the official plane even for personal travel.)
FBI Director Patel responds to The Atlantic 22562395
In response to questions from CNN, FBI spokesman Ben Williamson said in a statement, “Director Patel took a total of 17 days off during his first year on the job – which is less than half the number his predecessor took over the same period.”
Williamson also said, “The skipping meetings fake narrative is just not connected to any reality. Anyone who actually works with the Director will tell you he is a 24/7 operator.”
Players and executives in the NHL tend to skew conservative in their politics, not unlike many FBI agents. Yet even to many of them, Patel is polarizing. While some appreciate his attention to the sport, others privately question if it’s appropriate for the head of the FBI to spend so much time on his favorite pastime and for a government official to get special treatment.
Interviews with more than a dozen NHL player agents, team and league executives as well as people familiar with Patel paint a picture of someone who has always liked to be around athletes and sports, dating back to his time as a member of the “Richmond Rowdies” spirit group while a college student at the University of Richmond .
Yet even those who said they admire Patel’s fandom added that they thought his behavior while celebrating in the Team USA Olympic locker room crossed a line of professionalism and was unbecoming of the position.
“He should’ve never been allowed into the room,” a sports agent who represents one of the players on Team USA remarked to CNN.
It didn’t help that the viral images started trending on social media just as the FBI was scrambling to deal with the violent fallout from a US-backed Mexican government operation that killed a top cartel leader.
FBI Director Kash Patel celebrates with Team USA hockey in locker room
While Patel was in Milan, FBI officials in Washington spent hours dealing with the aftermath of violence by cartel members in Mexican cities where thousands of Americans were on vacations, CNN previously reported, fueling further consternation among some in the bureau. A person familiar with Patel’s activity that day disputed that characterization and said he was receiving briefings and “fully engaged.”
The images also got the attention of Trump, who privately told allies that he was unhappy with Patel’s behavior at the Olympics, as well as frustrated by the coverage of him in the men’s locker room, sources familiar with the talks told CNN. The FBI declined to comment on Patel’s conversations with the president.
Clark Mowrey was working out at the gym in DC more than a decade ago when he noticed a guy wearing a Hartford Whalers shirt. A hockey fan, Mowrey introduced himself and was impressed with the man’s hockey knowledge. Mowrey says he quickly saw him as a kindred spirit in need of a community of friends and eventually invited him to help coach his son’s youth team.
That’s how Patel, then a rank-and-file DOJ employee, became “Coach Kash.”
“It was crazy because I really didn’t realize how busy his schedule was,” Mowrey said. “But he never missed a practice and never missed any games. The kids kind of fell in love with him and he was always there and always available.”
Patel got hooked on coaching, Mowrey said, helping out at USA Hockey youth clinics and often showing up to the rink still in his suit from work and then changing back into it to return to the office after practices and games. He was never paid – other than the occasional gift cards to Buffalo Wild Wings as a thank you from parents – and had to pay for accommodation out of his own pocket when the team had to travel for a tournament, Mowrey said.
Mowrey said his son still texts with Patel monthly and that he occasionally gets a call from one of the kids they used to coach – now young men in their early 20s – asking about Patel.
“They get filtered down versions of news and stuff and they’re like, ‘Is Kash doing okay? Because we heard this or we saw this person saying these things about him,’” Mowrey said. “Other than the ugly stuff that’s out there, the kids know that his core values and his moral fibers are always on point.”
Patel left the Justice Department in 2017 and began working as an aide for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, led by then-Republican Rep. Devin Nunes. That’s also when he took on even more hockey coaching responsibility, volunteering as an assistant coach for a youth recreational team made up of students at Woodrow Wilson High School, now called Jackson-Reed, in Northwest Washington.
“He really cared about us,” said Luke, one of the players on that team who asked not to be identified by his surname for privacy concerns. “All of the games were Friday nights, so he was giving up all of his Friday nights to come coach me and my idiot friends. He definitely cared.”
Luke and other former players from the team remembered “Coach Kash” as an encouraging voice on the bench for a team that lost more games than it won. In addition to Friday night games, the team practiced for one hour during the week – usually around 9 p.m. – and played from October to March.
One former player described Patel as acting like “more of a bro” and “one of the guys” with the team. Unlike the head coach, who was the father of one of the players, Patel had no connection to the school or anyone who played.
After one player showed up late to a game – a pattern of his, according to former teammates – Patel yelled at him on the bench and sent him home.
“Kash just kind of lost it on him, they got in a bit of a screaming match,” Luke said, adding that the rest of the team appreciated the coach highlighting the player’s bad attitude. “That was [Patel’s] intensity and no-nonsense personality.”
But the players didn’t know much about Patel outside of hockey. They talked to him about the NHL and the New York Islanders – Patel’s favorite team – and not about politics, the former players said.
There was at least one exception, however. When a player mentioned something he’d heard about Trump in the media, Patel quipped, “Don’t believe that fake news,” multiple players on the team recounted.
“Everyone just sort of laughed it off at the time,” said one player, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation. “Then like a year or two later, he shows up on Fox News and he sort of has his own segment and everyone was kind of blindsided by that. We were like, ‘Whoa, this is who Coach Kash really is, I suppose.’”
Players were told that Patel couldn’t help coach anymore after the 2019 season because he “got a really important job,” Luke said. “Little did we know his job was being buddy buddy with Trump and all that good stuff.”
Some of the former players have followed Patel’s career closely over the years, they said, despite not agreeing with his politics. Patel’s demeanor at the Olympics was unlike the committed Coach Kash they knew, several players noted. In the Olympics video that went viral, some said they barely recognized their old assistant coach, whom they knew as “intense” and deeply serious.
A year ago, as star Russian right winger Ovechkin closed in on Gretzky’s NHL record for career goals scored, Washington’s Capital One Arena was sold out as fans donning red jerseys hoped to see history.
One luxury suite included Ted Leonsis, the team owner; Gary Bettman, the NHL commissioner; and Gretzky.
Next to them was Patel, as seen on TV coverage of the game. He was there at Gretzky’s invitation, according to people familiar with the matter. Patel was also in the locker room with players after the game, in which Ovechkin matched Gretzky’s record but didn’t yet break it. That happened two days later against the New York Islanders at UBS Arena in Elmont, New York.
Patel was there, too, again as a guest of Gretzky. (The two traveled separately, according to a person familiar with the matter.) And Patel was again in the locker room with Capitals players after Ovechkin broke Gretzky’s record in the game that afternoon.
Initially hesitant to go into the locker room with players after the game, Patel relented at Gretzky’s urging, according to a person who witnessed the interaction. Patel was “starstruck” being around some players, especially those from his beloved Islanders, the person said.
A second official who was there said Patel was reserved and respectful, posing for a picture with Ovechkin and his record-breaking puck. His demeanor was starkly different than the video of him whooping it up with Team USA players in the locker room at the Olympics, the person noted.
For some NHL officials who were also present for the festivities on Long Island last year, it was refreshing to see a prominent member of the administration actually passionate about the sport, whereas past White Houses might’ve had more football or basketball fans.
“We’ve been through so many presidents who don’t know how to hold a hockey stick, and it gets frustrating,” said one league official.
Patel’s apparent friendship with Gretzky has brought scrutiny to the legendary Canadian hockey player. The two have been spotted golfing together even as tensions between the US and Canada have spiked under Trump, who has in the past repeatedly suggested that Canada could become America’s “51st state.”
Gretzky has said he’s “not into politics.”
At the Olympics in Milan, Patel was not part of the official US delegation that attended women’s hockey games and included Vice President JD Vance. Patel traveled separately and arrived after the US delegation left.
Bill Guerin, the general manager of Team USA and the Minnesota Wild, invited him into the post-game locker room, two sources familiar with the matter said. Guerin and Patel are friendly, the people said.
While there, Patel called Trump on speakerphone, and the interaction caused controversy after some players could be heard laughing in response to Trump’s comment that he would “have” to invite the women’s hockey team — who also won a gold medal at the games — or else “I do believe I probably would be impeached.”
As players were peppered with questions over the interaction, several later apologized. Some around the NHL said it was an example of why it’s problematic for someone in Patel’s position to be allowed to get so close. His presence alone risks pulling them into a polarizing political climate, according to sources.
Focus also turned to how Patel got there. The FBI at the time disputed that Patel was traveling to cheer on the men’s hockey team and cited numerous meetings he was scheduled to have.
“For the very concerned media — yes, I love America and was extremely humbled when my friends, the newly minted Gold Medal winners on Team USA, invited me into the locker room to celebrate this historic moment with the boys- Greatest country on earth and greatest sport on earth,” Patel wrote on X after the locker room video was posted .
Patel’s beer league team is called “The Dons” – not for the president but for the legendary (and controversial) Canadian hockey coach and television commentator Don Cherry. The uniforms have an American red, white and blue color scheme. Each jersey has a yellow “Don’t Tread On Me” patch on the back.
In the last several years, the team has become such a dynasty in their division, winning literally every game – 76 in a row – that they were eventually bumped up to a higher tier in the league with stiffer competition, including a former professional player.
“That was the first security detail I’d seen at the rink,” said Karl Alzner, a former NHL defenseman who played for the Washington Capitals and Montreal Canadiens. He’s played in the beer league for the past five years, joking that he’s the “second-most recognized person” there after Patel.
The chatter on Alzner’s team: What would happen if someone hit the FBI director?
“Nobody really knew,” Alzner said, adding that his team was never instructed not to hit him.
On the Sunday of the beer league championship game, the Dons were outmatched by Alzner’s team, losing 5-2. Patel played limited minutes while his security detail watched from several spots around the rink. He was on the ice when two goals were scored on his team.
When the game was over, Patel skated off the ice and went to the locker room with the rest of his teammates while the federal agents silently followed him at a distance – just like every other Sunday in what has become routine.
“In the world he’s in, hockey is a safe place,” said Mowrey, Patel’s friend and fellow coach. “There’s some normality that can be created from hanging out with your buddies in the locker room. … It’s 100% an escape. In the locker room, nobody ever talks about their jobs.”
CNN’s Evan Perez and Alayna Treene contributed to this report.
