Boston Fleet and Team USA defender Megan Keller hasn’t gotten much sleep lately.
It’s been a busy stretch, to put it lightly. For starters, Keller scored the gold-medal-winning goal of the 2026 women’s hockey Olympic tournament in Milan on February 20. Then, it was time for celebrations, numerous other interviews, and resuming her season with the Fleet. However, no day may have been busier than this past Saturday. She kicked it off playing in Ottawa with the Fleet before jetting off to New York to appear on “Saturday Night Live” (SNL) alongside USA teammate Hilary Knight and brothers Jack and Quinn Hughes of the also Olympic gold-medal-winning U.S. men’s hockey team.
“I got a call from Faith [the Boston Fleet’s media and community relations manager] asking if I’d be interested in going on “SNL”, and I was like yeah of course,” Keller told The Ice Garden at the Fleet’s Olympic celebration event at View Boston on Monday. “It’s like a dream on the bucket list…[and it was] pretty cool to get to experience it with Hilary.”
The Fleet’s game in Ottawa ended up at 4:47 p.m. ET. “SNL” had a private jet waiting for Keller, and before she knew it, she was en route to 30 Rock.
“That’s a first for me [the private jet],” Keller said. “[I] landed [in New York] around 6:30-7 and went straight to the studio. Dress rehearsal is at eight, I think I got there like 7:45 and went right into it.”
Keller, Knight, and the Hughes brothers appeared during host Connor Storrie’s monologue. Storrie stars in the hit HBO show “Heated Rivalry,” a LGBTQ+ hockey romance series based on the best-selling novel of the same name. During his monologue. Storrie joked that he realized he hadn’t accomplished looking like he knew how to play hockey well while watching the Olympics. The crowd then applauded as the Hughes brothers appeared at his side. Jack Hughes soon quipped that they’d been too busy to watch “Heated Rivalry,” and after some back and forth, Storrie said he hoped some hockey players watched it. Keller and Knight then entered the stage to raucous applause.
“Don’t worry, we saw your show,” Keller told Storrie on air.
Storrie responded that it was “so cool” to have them all there. Knight then made a joke referencing the wave of controversy that rocked the U.S. men’s team after video was posted to social media in which many of them appearing to laugh along with a joke made by U.S. President Donald Trump at the women’s team’s expense during a post-win phone call into their locker room.
“It was gonna be just us, but we thought we’d invite the guys too,” cracked Knight on “SNL.”
“Yeah, we thought we’d give them a little moment to shine,” quipped Keller after.
The players then exited the stage following a wisecrack about how long it’d been since each team had last won. However, they reappeared at the end of the show, with Keller and Knight donning their respective PWHL jerseys.
“We were wearing our USA [jerseys] in the monologue and then what [more] perfect time to throw on the P-Dub jersey,” Keller said at the View Boston event. “Hopefully a lot of people watching that are wondering now what the P-Dub is and maybe we got some new fans.”
In what was a whirlwind night, Keller said the moment that it sunk in that she was about to appearing on “SNL” was right after she arrived. Staff soon arrived to escort her to Storrie’s dressing room to meet him and run through the monologue.
“He’s amazing,” Keller said. “What he was able to do, [he] basically did the show twice. They do the full dress rehearsal and then they do the full performance. What he has to remember is wild, so it was pretty amazing to watch.”
The next two days were filled with travel back home and Boston media appearances. Then, it was time for Monday night’s Olympic celebration for all four of the Fleet’s medalists- USA gold medalists Keller, Aerin Frankel, and Haley Winn, plus Swiss bronze medalist Alina Müller. The celebration drew a crowd of around 650 people, primarily for photos and autographs. The event was originally scheduled to end at 7 p.m., but the lines for the player meet-and-greets stretched on and the players insisted on meeting everyone. Keller and fellow USA defender Haley Winn’s line didn’t wrap up until past eight.
“These are the people that cheer us on and support us every single night,” Keller said. “They’re why this league is possible. They’re why we’re able to do what we do. So we wanted to meet everybody and have some time to take pictures and autographs…they came here for us, so we wanted to make sure we got the opportunity to meet them.”
There’s little rest in sight for the Fleet. Their road trip continues Thursday in New York before they trek out west to take on Seattle and Vancouver back-to-back. However, the business doesn’t faze the sleep-deprived Keller.
“It’s all fun things,” Keller said. “[I’m] running on adrenaline, [but it’s all been] pretty cool.”