MILAN — U.S. forward Haley Skamula was emotional after the U.S. women’s hockey team punched its ticket to the Olympic gold medal game.
It wasn’t because of the 5-0 victory over Sweden in the semifinals, or the feeling that she was just one win away from gold. Skamula realizes her team captain, Hilary Knight, will be competing in her final Olympics.
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“We’ve been focused on competing for the gold medal,” she said, choking up tears. “We haven’t considered the consequences of it.”
Knight, 36, announced in May that the Milan Games would be her fifth and final Olympics. In more than two decades with 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 U.S. women’s hockey.
On February 7, in a qualifying match against Finland, she scored her 14th career Olympic goal, tying Hockey Hall of Fame forwards Natalie Darwitz and Katie King-Crawley’s American scoring record at the event. Knight is also the top scorer at the Women’s World Championships.
Her influence extends beyond the ice, too. She played an important role in the founding of the Professional Women’s Hockey League. Throughout her long career, Knight has inspired a generation of U.S. women’s hockey players, many of whom are now playing on youth-heavy U.S. rosters that have been dominant heading into the 2026 Olympics.
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No team in the tournament has scored more goals than the United States (31), led by Caroline Harvey, Leila Edwards and Hannah Bilka, all 24 and under who grew up idolizing Knight. The U.S. team has not allowed an opponent to score since February 5, setting a record-breaking 331 minutes and 23 seconds of consecutive clean sheets.
There’s no doubt that Team USA is the favorite heading into Thursday’s gold medal game — and they have some extra motivation, too.
“Women’s hockey is where it is today because of her,” Skamula said. “To be able to win a gold medal for her, I think that’s the legacy we all want to leave her.”
Knight’s agent approached her about her future two years ago, shortly after the PWHL launched.
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She remains one of the best players in the world – she scored a hat trick in the gold-medal game against Canada at the last Women’s World Championships in Brampton – and Knight has yet to wonder when her Olympic career will be over.
“What are you talking about?” Knight said at the time. “I’m not ready to have this conversation.”
But as she thought about her commitment — six more years of high-level training until 2030, when she turns 40 — Knight realized that her preparations for Milan would be her last Olympic training cycle.
“I went through an emotional transition from feeling really raw and frustrated that this question was being asked, to feeling like this is awesome,” Knight said. “I’ve had an incredible Olympic career. Why not go out with a bang.”
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Knight made her Olympic debut in 2010, when she was 20 and already a star forward at the University of Wisconsin. A year before the Vancouver Olympics, she led the NCAA with 83 points in 39 games and is still having one of the most productive college seasons ever. The United States lost to Canada in the gold medal game at that tournament and again at the 2014 Winter Olympics.
After the crushing loss in Sochi — in which the U.S. led 2-1 in the final 90 seconds before losing 3-2 in overtime — Knight thought her hockey career might be over.
“You put everything at risk, you sacrificed a lot,” she said. “And the fashion we lost, it was so bad. I had to live with it for a while.”
It turns out that the urge to quit smoking is short-lived. After the Sochi Winter Olympics, Knight led Team USA to two consecutive world championships, scoring a total of 14 goals and 21 points in 10 games across the two tournaments. In 2017, she was one of the U.S. players who threatened to boycott the World Championships to demand increased wages and support from USA Hockey.
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After 15 months of negotiations, the players achieved a major victory, with wages increased and support still there today. “This inspired this group in a way that I’ve never seen before,” Knight said.
Knight eventually became an Olympic champion in 2018, helping the United States win its first gold medal since women’s hockey debuted in the Olympics in 1998. When the U.S. women’s team lost in 2022, Knight said there was no doubt she would return in 2026.
“I feel like we squandered the opportunity,” Knight said of the Beijing Olympics, which are being held under unusual restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Team USA also faced adversity on day one, with star forward Brianna Decker breaking her left leg.
“So I’m even more eager to come back.”
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Regardless of the outcome of Thursday’s game in Milan, Knight will become the American hockey player with five medals ever. She will become the third player to win five medals at the Olympics, joining Canada’s Jayna Hufford and Haley Wickenheiser. On Thursday, Marie-Philippe Poulin will attempt to lead Team Canada to a rout, with whom she will also share five medals.
Knight didn’t quit the sport entirely. Her goal, she said, is to play professionally for two more years — she is currently on a one-year contract with the Seattle Rapids — and win two more world titles.
“My biggest thing is, every time I’m on any team, I want to show up and make an impact on and off the ice,” Knight said. “And I also have to still love it because what we do is really hard. If those two things line up, I’m here. I’m going to show up.”
In her fifth and final Olympics, Knight’s focus isn’t on soaking in the experience: “I want to win,” she said.
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For Knight, the gold medal would be even more meaningful to win one with her partner, U.S. Olympic speed skater Brittany Bowe, who is also competing in her final Olympics. Bowe has finished fourth in her first two races in Milan, but she still has a chance to get on the podium in the 1,500m on Friday, the day after Knight’s final Olympic race.
Knight and Bowe first met after the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics and spoke ahead of the 2022 Games. They met each other during nightly walks in the Athletes Village, followed protocol while wearing masks, and started dating soon after.
“It would be cool if we could all go out with something we wanted,” she said.
Since appearing in Milan it has been a relatively uneventful campaign by Knight’s standards, with just five points from six games. But the U.S. doesn’t need her much as its younger players take the lead on offense. The United States has 12 Olympic rookies and seven players still in college. Four of their top five scorers are under 25 years old.
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Despite this, Knight’s influence on the team as captain is still great. For years, she has used her voice to guide newbies into the program.
New players on the team would often pull out their phones and show Knight a picture of them with her when they were kids. Knight is always careful to let rookies take a moment to digest the experience of being in a locker room with someone they respect. But, she said, she was always quick to make them understand they belonged on the team.
“It’s a really fun dynamic, some of these young players grew up watching me and they took pictures with me,” Knight said. “But then it’s: OK, let’s start working together now. I don’t want you to be shy. I don’t want you to hold anything back.”
Bilka was one of those players who met Knight at a hockey camp in 2014. She made her debut for the women’s national team in August 2022. During her first practice with the team, Knight approached her and asked how she was feeling. Birka, who was just 21 at the time, admits she was nervous. Knight told her it was okay. She still gets nervous.
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“She’s a great communicator,” Bilka said. “She’s been in all kinds of situations (in hockey), so she knows how people feel.”
Nearly four years later, Birka was third on the Olympic scoring list and led Team USA with four goals. Harvey, who also shares a childhood photo with Knight, led the tournament in scoring with nine points. Led by Knight, Team USA is on the verge of winning Olympic gold.
Whatever happens in Thursday’s gold medal game, it will be the end of Knight’s remarkable Olympic journey.
“She will go down in history as one of the greatest players of all time,” U.S. goalie Aerin Frankel said. “I’m honored to be able to share the ice with her for as long as possible. Looking ahead to Thursday, I’m very excited for her. Obviously, it’s going to be bittersweet, but I hope to send her off the right way.”
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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