Sidney Crosby considers it a "great honor" to uphold the tradition of visiting the White House as a championship team, but his former teammate Georges Laraque says the Pittsburgh Penguins' decision to accept President Donald Trump's invitation is "an embarrassment," according to Sportsnet.

"I know hockey's more conservative than other sports, but this time it's just wrong," said Laraque, who played for the Penguins for two seasons starting in 2006, per Sportsnet. "I'm surprised the NHL didn't make a stand. To me, it's an embarrassment that they're going. When they go there, it's not going to look good. They'll get demolished. This is the last place the Stanley Cup should be."

Laraque's comments come a day after two Winnipeg Jets players, Jacob Trouba and Matt Hendricks, backed teammate Blake Wheeler's suggestion that Trump had attacked freedom of speech.

The Penguins' decision to visit Trump, who rescinded a similar invitation to Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors when the former publicly questioned whether the NBA team should go to the White House, came in an announcement Sunday, when the team said it respects "the institution of the Office of the President and the long tradition of championship teams visiting the White House." That was the same day more than 200 NFL players either linked arms, took a knee or completely stayed off the field during pregame national anthems -- both a rebuke of Trump's Friday call for NFL owners to "fire" players kneeling during the anthem and a surge of protests against social injustice that started in 2016 with kneeling by former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick.