Hilary Knight played through significant injury to win Olympic gold
Former Wisconsin Badgers star Hilary Knight not only scored a game-tying goal in the final moments of the women’s hockey gold-medal game at the 2026 Olympics, she also was playing through pain.
Knight, 36, revealed on “CBS Mornings” that she played in the Olympics with a torn medial collateral ligament in one of her knees. She was placed on long-term injured reserve by her Professional Women’s Hockey League team, the Seattle Torrent, indicating she suffered the injury during the games in Milan.
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Knight, who has three goals and seven assists in 14 games with Seattle this year, is now the all-time points scorer and goal scorer in Team USA Olympics history. The score that gave her those marks came with just more than two minutes to play against Canada, a deflection that tied the game at 1-1. USA won in overtime on Megan Keller’s winner.
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“To be able to play through injury was definitely a mental sort of gymnastic challenge for myself and also physical, but we’ve got some amazing support staff that did their best to get me out there and perform at my best – as best as I could,” Knight said on CBS.
Knight also appeared on “Saturday Night Live” in the aftermath of her hockey triumph, as well as “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.” Both of those appearances came alongside members of the men’s team, which also won gold in Italy.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Team USA’s Hilary Knight played with major injury to win Olympic gold