When the members of the United States Men’s baseball team roll up to LoanDepot Park on Tuesday afternoon the first thing you will notice isn’t baseball. 

It will be hockey. 

Team USA will wear official game-worn sweaters from the 2026 Winter Olympic gold-medal winning U.S. Olympic hockey team ahead of their championship game of the World Baseball Classic against Venezuela on Tuesday. 

The sweaters, which carried the men’s hockey team to an overtime victory over Canada, will now have a second life under the humid Miami sun.

Chicago Cubs outfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong reached out to Olympic hero Jack Hughes about USA wearing the sweaters, and Hughes made a call of his own to put the plan in motion. 

Fanatics helped get 36 sweaters in total, enough for the players, coaches, and staff to the team hotel on Tuesday morning. 

For weeks, Vincent Trocheck spoke like a player who was prepared to be traded.

He shared his preferences for a destination that his 12-team no-trade list afforded him.

He opened up about the impact it had on his family, most notably 7-year-old son Leo’s wholesome reaction to the possibility of his father getting traded that tugged at hockey fans’ heart strings.

Yet there was Trocheck on Saturday afternoon wearing red, white and blue, skating in his usual second-line center post as the Rangers lost, 6-3, to the Devils at Prudential Center.

The chances of him being in another team’s lineup that day had been high before Friday’s 3 p.m. trade deadline came and went without an offer that satisfied general manager Chris Drury.

“He’s been terrific,” coach Mike Sullivan said of how he saw Trocheck navigate the last few weeks. “He’s such a good pro. He’s a great person, he’s a great leader, and he’s a terrific hockey player. I think he’s done a really good job under difficult circumstances, just trying to navigate through it. I always use the word ‘compartmentalize’ it and try to go out and play when the puck drops, and that’s when he’s at his best. I think, moving forward, there’s a lot of unknowns. And so, right now, Troch is a New York Ranger, and we’re thrilled to have him.”

If Saturday’s game meant anything to either team, it would’ve been considered a riveting, back-and-forth contest.

Alas, the two clubs were stacked atop one another in the basement of the Metropolitan Division entering their first meeting of the season.

Both teams severely underperformed in recent months and are far out of the playoff picture.

The Battle of the Hudson moniker doesn’t really apply when neither team is battling for anything.

Saturday may have been meaningless, but it was a competitive affair nonetheless in a game featuring a Jack Hughes hat trick against his Team USA bench boss Sullivan.

Nico Hischier broke a 3-3 tie just over eight minutes into the third period, when the Devils captain converted on his team’s third straight power play after following up on a rebound.

The special teams game heavily swung in New Jersey’s favor.

After giving up another goal less than two minutes into the start of a game, when Jesper Bratt scored 1:06 after puck drop, the Rangers got a couple of goals from their defensemen.

Will Borgen notched the first before Vladislav Gavrikov recorded his 12th goal of the season, doubling his previous career high.

The Devils had only capitalized on one of their previous 26 power plays, but they went a perfect 3-for-3 against the Rangers.

With 12.4 seconds left in the first period, Dawson Mercer scored first with the man advantage to tie it up 2-2.

Hughes later cashed in on the power play in the second period, one of his three goals on the day.

It only lasted for just over a minute, however, as Will Cuylle notched his third goal in the last two games.

Hischier then scored his team-leading seventh power-play goal to give the Devils a 3-2 lead.

Jack Hughes’ whirlwind Olympics victory lap included a brief wedding detour.

The star Devils forward and Winter Games hero found himself at the center of wild romance rumors last week when a report suggested he would soon wed the daughter of billionaire Indian-American business exec Nikesh Arora.

“Indian-American tech mogul Nikesh Arora’s daughter, Ayesha Arora, is set to marry Jack Hughes in a traditional Hindu ceremony in Jodhpur. The high-profile guest list included Gautam Adani, the Ambani family, US officials and others,” a report published by local media in India read.

Naturally, the claims made the rounds online and landed in front of Hughes’ agent, Pat Brisson, who addressed the speculation surrounding his client Friday by telling Forbes, “The mix-up was a case of mistaken identity.”

Forbes noted in its report Friday how bride Arora “is several days into wedding celebrations for her upcoming nuptials to a different man with the same name,” with outlets misidentifying him as the Olympic gold medalist.

Hughes, who has been romantically linked to pop singer Tate McRae since late 2025, is just days removed from his gold medal triumph at the Milano Cortina Games, where he scored the overtime goal against Canada for Team USA in the men’s hockey final.

The 2-1 victory in extra minutes kicked off a lively stream of celebrations and controversy for the men’s squad.

While taking a celebratory phone call from President Donald Trump last week, the commander in chief joked about having to invite the gold medal-winning women’s hockey team to the White House or else, “I do believe I probably would be impeached.”

The remarks elicited laughter from the locker room, with members of the team, including Hughes, 24, and older brother Quinn, 26, speaking out in support of their female compatriots.

Over the weekend, the Hughes siblings appeared on “Saturday Night Live” with Team USA captain Hilary Knight and her teammate, Megan Keller, who scored the game-winner versus Canada in the women’s hockey final in Italy.

The golden tour continued Monday when Hughes, Quinn and Knight visited “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”

Every week, The Post will bring you our picks of the best one-liners and stories from satirical site the Babylon Bee to take the edge off Hump Day. Want more of a chuckle? Be sure to click the links.

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