MILAN — After the U.S. women’s hockey team punched its ticket to the Olympic gold medal game, American forward Hayley Scamurra got emotional.
It wasn’t because of the result — a dominant 5-0 win over Sweden in the semifinals — or her feelings about being one win away from a gold medal. It had dawned on Scamurra that her captain, Hilary Knight, would be playing in her final Olympic game.
“We’ve been so focused on getting to the gold medal game,” she said, choking up. “We weren’t thinking of the aftereffects of it yet.”
Knight, 36, announced in May that Milan will be her fifth and final Olympics. Over two decades on the U.S. women’s national team, she has become one of the most decorated and dominant players in the sport — and the face of women’s hockey in the United States.
On Feb. 7, in a preliminary-round game against Finland, she scored her 14th career Olympic goal, tying Hockey Hall of Fame forward Natalie Darwitz and Katie King-Crowley in all-time scoring by an American at the tournament. Knight is also the highest-scoring player ever at the Women’s World Championships.
Her impact extends off the ice, too. She was instrumental in launching the Professional Women’s Hockey League. And throughout her long career, Knight has inspired a generation of American women’s hockey players, many of whom are now playing on the youth-heavy U.S. roster that has been on a dominant run at the 2026 Olympics.
No team in the tournament has scored more goals than Team USA (31), paced by Caroline Harvey, Laila Edwards and Hannah Bilka, all 24 and under who grew up idolizing Knight. The U.S. also hasn’t allowed a goal against since Feb. 5 for a record-setting 331-minute, 23-second shutout streak.
There’s little doubt the Americans are the favorite heading into Thursday’s gold medal game — and they have a little extra motivation too.
“Women’s hockey is where it’s at because of her,” said Scamurra. “To be able to end with a gold medal for her, I think that’s the legacy we all want to leave for her.”
Two years ago, not long after the PWHL launched, Knight’s agent approached her about her future.
She was still one of the very best players in the world — at the previous Women’s World Championships in Brampton, she scored a hat trick to defeat Canada in the gold medal game — and Knight hadn’t yet thought about when her Olympic career might end.
“What are you talking about?” Knight said at the time. “I’m not ready to have this conversation.”
But as she thought about the commitment — six more years of high performance training through to 2030, when she would be 40 — Knight realized the run-up to Milan would be her final Olympic training cycle.
“I went through this transformation of emotions from really raw, upset that the question was even proposed, to feeling like this is awesome,” said Knight. “I’ve had an incredible Olympic career. Why not go out with a bang.”
Knight made her Olympic debut in 2010, when she was 20 and already a star forward at the University of Wisconsin; her 83 points in just 39 games led the NCAA the year before the Vancouver Olympics and remains one of the most productive college seasons ever. The U.S. lost to Canada in the gold medal game at that tournament, and again at the 2014 Winter Games.
After the devastation of the loss in Sochi — the U.S. led 2-1 in the final 90 seconds and ended up losing 3-2 in overtime — Knight thought she might be done with hockey.
“You put everything on the line, you sacrifice so much,” she said. “And the fashion that we lost, it just sucked. And I had to sit with that for a while.”
The impulse to quit turned out to be short-lived. After Sochi, Knight led the U.S. to two straight world titles, scoring a combined 14 goals and 21 points in 10 games across both tournaments. In 2017, she was among the American players who threatened to boycott the world championships, demanding increased wages and support from USA Hockey.
After 15 months of negotiations, the players earned a major victory with increased pay and support that still stands today. “That galvanized this group like I’ve never seen before,” Knight said.
Knight finally became an Olympic champion in 2018, helping the U.S. win its first gold medal since women’s hockey debuted at the Olympics in 1998. When the American women lost in 2022, Knight said there was no question she would be back for 2026.
“I feel like we squandered our opportunity,” Knight said about the Beijing Olympics, which were played under unusual restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Americans also dealt with adversity on Day 1 when star forward Brianna Decker broke her left leg.
“So I was even more hungry to come back.”
No matter the result in Milan on Thursday, Knight will become the most decorated American hockey player ever with five medals. She’ll be just the third player to win five medals at the Olympics, beside Canadians Jayna Hefford and Hayley Wickenheiser. Marie-Philip Poulin, who will attempt to lead Canada to a massive upset on Thursday, will also join them with five medals.
Knight is not retiring from the sport altogether. She said her goal is to play two more years professionally — she is currently signed to a one-year contract with the Seattle Torrent — and two more world championships.
A young Haley Winn, now a defender on the U.S. women’s national team, poses with Hilary Knight. (Courtesy of USA Hockey)
“My biggest thing is I want to show up and have an impact on and off the ice every single time I’m on any team,” Knight said. “And I also have to still love it because what we do is really hard. If those two things align, I’m here. I’m showing up.”
In her fifth and final Olympics, Knight’s focus isn’t on soaking in the experience: “I want to win,” she said.
What could make a gold medal even more meaningful for Knight is winning one alongside her partner, American Olympic speed skater Brittany Bowe, who is also competing in her final Olympics. Bowe finished fourth in her first two events in Milan, but she has one more shot to get on the podium on Friday in the 1,500m — the day after Knight’s final Olympic game.
Knight and Bowe first met in 2018 after the Pyeongchang Olympics and struck up a conversation sometime before the 2022 Olympics. They got to know each other on nightly walks in the athletes’ village, wearing masks to follow protocol, and started dating shortly after.
“It would be so cool if both of us went out with what we wanted,” she said.
Since showing up in Milan, it’s been a relatively quiet tournament by Knight’s standards, with five points in six games. But Team USA hasn’t needed much from her, with its young cohort pacing the offense. The U.S. has 12 Olympic rookies and seven players still in college. Four of their top five scorers are under 25.
Still, Knight, as the captain, is hugely influential on the team. She has used her voice to guide rookies into the program for years.
It’s a common occurrence that new players on the team will pull out their phones to show Knight a photo of themselves with her when they were kids. Knight is always careful to let the rookies take a moment to digest being in a locker room with someone they looked up to. But, she said, she’s always quick to make them understand that they belong on the team.
Hilary Knight poses with a young Laila Edwards, one of the future faces of women’s hockey in the U.S. (Courtesy of USA Hockey)
“It’s a really interesting dynamic that some of these younger players have grown up watching me and they have the picture with me,” said Knight. “But then it’s: OK, let’s get to work together now. I don’t want you to be shy. I don’t want you to hold anything back.”
Bilka, who met Knight at a hockey camp in 2014, was one of those players. She made her women’s national team debut in August 2022. During her first practice with the team, Knight approached her to ask how she was feeling. Bilka, just 21 at the time, admitted she was nervous. Knight told her it was OK; she still gets nervous too.
“She’s just very good at communicating,” said Bilka. “She’s been in every situation (in hockey), so she knows how people feel.”
Almost four years later, Bilka sits third in scoring at the Olympics and leads the U.S. team with four goals. Harvey, who also has a childhood photo with Knight, leads the tournament in scoring with nine points. And led by Knight, the Americans are on the precipice of an Olympic gold medal.
Whatever happens in the gold medal game on Thursday, it will be the end of Knight’s remarkable Olympic run.
“She’s going to go down in history as one of the greatest players to ever play the game,” said U.S. goalie Aerin Frankel. “I’m honored that I was able to share the ice with her for as long as I have. As I look to Thursday, I’m just so excited for her. Obviously, it will be bittersweet, but I’m hoping to send her off the right way.”
