Women’s hockey has changed dramatically over the past decade, but one player has remained constant throughout that evolution. Hilary Knight has been there for nearly every major moment, shaping how the sport looks, sounds, and feels. By anyone's measuring stick, she has achieved the heights of success and her resume proves it.
At 36, she has already cemented her place on the Mount Rushmore of hockey greats. But she's not done. Knight is preparing for her fifth, and final, Olympic Games and sat down with FanSided's Steph Driver to talk about what motivates her.
Her goal is a simple one, but will take all she has. "Just win a gold medal, that would be epic," Knight said. “Showing up to the tournament ready to play and continuing to plod our way through the tournament so we have a successful opportunity to find the end goal.”
Knight is also well aware of the expectations placed on Team USA, especially after its recent gold medal victory over Canada in the women’s hockey Rivalry Series. When reflecting on what she took away from that tournament, Knight pointed to international play as an important benchmark.
“Any time there’s international play, it’s a really good measuring stick of where we are in relation to other countries,” she said. “Canada’s a great hockey team, and so we obviously matched up very nicely the last few games. We're able to go back to the drawing board and figure out what we want to continue to work on, and what's working well for us.”
The challenge, Knight noted, is that the team won’t be together again until February.
Hilary Knight feels like an underdog
She's the captain for the Seattle Torrent. She's won four Olympic medals - three silvers and one gold in 2018. She has two NCAA national championships. She has ten Women's World Championship gold medals and five silver. And yet, her competitive spirit is as strong as ever.
“I honestly always feel like I have something to prove,” Knight said. “I don’t know if it’s just always feeling like the underdog in this sport, or what it is.”
That mindset, she explained, is tied less to individual accomplishments and more to what winning represents at the highest level. Making the team is only the first hurdle, what comes after is what endures.
“We love our winners, we celebrate our wins,” Knight said. “When you think about the type of work that goes into just one making this team, and then two being successful on this team, you want to win at the end.”
Winning, in Knight’s view, is about more than a medal. It’s what solidifies a group’s place in history and keeps those connections alive long after the tournament ends.
“Then the team’s remembered, the legacy’s remembered,” she said. “There are more touch points, you get reunions, you get to see each other more, and you get celebrated for all the hard work and efforts and the ups and the downs. That's really important."
Hilary Knight is proudest of what happened away from the rink
For all of the goals, medals, and records attached to her name, Knight said the work she values most didn’t happen during games at all.
“Honestly, probably all of our off-ice work,” Knight said. "It started with our 2017 equitable support battle, and figuring out how to increase training resources and increase different staffing for the national team that we so desperately needed to be able to compete on the world stage. Then it moved along to the PWHL, and ideating that, and then going through the CBA."
“The things that I, along with other teammates, have been able to do while we've put our heads together and stood up as a group and really put everything on the line is pretty incredible,” Knight said.
Even now, she admits she hasn’t fully processed how much has changed in a relatively short time.
“I can kind of rattle off everything, but I don’t necessarily really, like, truly grasp, I think, the depth of everything that we've been able to accomplish in such a small amount of time,” she said. “If I had to reflect on stuff away from the ice, that would definitely be some of my proudest moments.”
Hershey's It's Your Happy Place Campaign makes it a family affair
"The happiness is the real gold," Knight said. "it's all about those moments away from the rink"
"When you win a gold medal, it's pretty epic. But, what you don't see is sort of the journey, and chasing that happiness, and finding happiness, and small joys, and small wins. A lot of that for me is just sort of my team behind the team. Family and friends. People have shown up for me countless of times. Because it takes a lot of people for just one of us to be successful on the world stage. To have Hershey's involved in telling that story, and it was really cool."
Hilary Knight is joining other Team USA athletes to tell the story of joy behind the podium, highlighting family and the support team that makes success possible. “Happiness is in the moments and experiences we share, not just the milestones we reach,” said Stacy Taffet, Hershey's Chief Growth Officer. “Hershey’s is fueling the brand’s momentum through what matters most: bringing people little prized moments of their own gold. Our new campaign connects consumers to the excitement of the games and reminds them happiness is within reach – even as a chocolate medal.”
For Knight, it was extra special to share with her family. "My parents were able to do a production day, and so they're like, this is what you do? Yeah, this is the other side of things, Mom and Dad. And they were just tickled by the whole experience. They were exhausted, but they were having a lot of fun."
As Knight prepares for Milan, those off-ice victories sit alongside her pursuit of another gold medal. Even with nothing left to prove on paper, Knight isn’t finished chasing what still matters most to her.