[MissTeeks]

And here come the rebuttals:

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/team-us...173151679.html

“It’s disappointing. It’s almost to say that we were coasting or don’t care, weren’t representing our countries as well as we could have and for other guys that have worn the jersey, it’s disappointing,” Team USA forward David Backes said. “I understand there’s hard feelings if you weren’t picked for the team or if whatever, but the comments are, I think – as a team guy and as a guy that stands by my teammates, win lose or draw, it’s a little distasteful and aggravating but everyone’s got a Twitter account and you can have freedom of speech to say whatever you want and so be it. But those comments don’t get lost in the fray and those comments are there and have been read and I think will be remembered when whatever happens going forward happens going forward.”

“The thing I’ve kind of gone with and I’m going to stick with it is I’ve played with Phil in Sochi and I don’t want to speak for him but I hope he doesn’t want to disrespect anybody in our locker room just like all the guys in our locker room don’t want to disrespect anyone outside of it,” Team USA forward Derek Stepan said. “As for social media, I know that there are some guys that are very passionate about USA and that’s great to see and again. It just comes back to the respect level from me. I hope that it was not in disrespect and was just about passion and wanting to succeed in the USA but I don’t want to go much further other than I certainly hope it wasn’t out of disrespect. It was more out of just being passionate about their colors.”
Added Stepan, “I don’t think our group looked into (the tweets) other than we just hope that it wasn’t an attack at us. I don’t think anybody thought it was funny on our side. Obviously especially after the way it’s gone, it stung our group anyways and to have outside pokes and jab, it doesn’t help but again – I hope that it wasn’t out of disrespect and that’s all we can really do at this point. “

“Everyone can have their opinion. They can say what they want to say. We were here. We tried hard, we played hard, and came up short,” forward Zach Parise said. “Didn’t Phil have surgery? I don’t think he could even play, anyway. His tweet didn’t really make sense.”