Hilary Knight.Photo: Meg Oliphant/Getty
Nothing — not even the non-existence of the event she’d compete in — could stop a young Hilary Knight from dreaming of Olympic glory.
The hockey player, now 32, says her mom, Cynthia Knight, told her that as a little girl, she “turned to my grandmother and I was like, ‘I’m playing hockey in the Olympics.’ And at that time women’s hockey wasn’t in the Olympics. I was this crazy child that was like, ‘I’m going to the Olympics.’ "
Knight’s interest in athletics started at a young age, but her actual sports varied. In fact, Knight tells PEOPLE Cynthia used to refer to her as “the one-sport wonder or the one-hit-wonder for sports.” She moved from one sport to the next, quickly losing interest.
It was after the family moved from northern California to Chicago, Illinois, that Knight found hockey through her mother’s friend. She’d skied, then tried ice skated before dabbling in her final winter sport, hockey. “It was really nerve-wracking to [my mom] because hockey, you require all this equipment, and at the time really the only sport that I really stuck with was skiing,” she recounts. “And so my mom’s like, ‘Do I get them all this hockey equipment? They’re just going to leave it the next day.’ "
Luckily, she didn’t just leave it the next day. In fact, Knight says hockey quickly developed into a passion before becoming something she realized she could do “seriously” once she reached high school.
“I was sort of a late bloomer in the sport,” Knight says now. “I was just obsessed with the game and just wanted to get better. I couldn’t even lift the puck until maybe two years or a year before high school.”
The women’s tournament for 2022 will include 10 teams. Team USA is in Group A with Canada, Finland, ROC (the Russian Olympic Committee), and Switzerland. The five teams in Group A will advance to the quarterfinals with Group B’s three teams, beginning the knockout phase.
“Each country is going to present its own challenge,” she says. “Obviously Canada and Finland are extremely good and Russia is good as well. So it’ll really be interesting to see. And we haven’t been able to play any of these guys for quite some time now just because of COVID.”
Hilary Knight.Harry How/Getty
But Knight isn’t exactly nervous — more like “excited nervous,” the athlete tells PEOPLE.
“I live for that uneasy feeling in your stomach, where the hair on the back of your neck stands up,” she explains. “Because there’s nothing like it. It’s like that adrenaline rush that it’s about to be go-time and the anticipation of a puck drop, and that’s when I’m happiest. So I look forward to it.”
She’s also looking forward to wearing a “Team USA” again.
“To be united all together cheering one another on, knowing that we’re a part of something bigger than ourselves, is a pretty unique and really cool feeling.”
To learn more about all the Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls, visitTeamUSA.org. Watch the Winter Olympics, beginning Feb 3, and the Paralympics, beginning March 4, on NBC.
source: people.com
