Olympic Spotlight—Women’s Ice Hockey: Can Seattle’s “Captain America” lead the U.S. to gold against rival Canada?

Hilary Knight, Captain of the U.S. National Team, nicknamed “Captain America” holding her gold medal from the 2025 International Ice Hockey Federation World Championships. Photo Credit: Milano Cortina Olympics / olympics.com

For the first installment in our Olympic Spotlight series, I’ve chosen to focus on arguably the most well-known sport in the Winter Olympics: hockey. Both women’s and men’s ice hockey will be held at the 2026 Olympics. For this article, we’ll discuss the U.S. Women’s National Ice Hockey Team and tune in for the Men's team next article. 

If you’re unfamiliar with ice hockey, a quick rundown should get you up to speed. The game is played on a 200-foot by 100-foot sheet of ice and uses wooden sticks to move a small rubber disc, called a puck. The goal is to score on the other team’s net as many times as possible. There's six players on the ice at a time: a goalie, two defensemen and three forwards (one center, and a winger on each side).  Like many other sports, penalties are called for breaking the rules but crucially result in a powerplay—a man advantage for the team awarded a penalty. You’ll most often see two types of penalties: two-minute minors and five-minute majors, which result in a powerplay for either two or five minutes. Sometimes, the goalie will be pulled to add an extra attacker at the end of the game, creating a pseudo-powerplay for the team with the empty net, but it's generally a play with high risk involved. A popular fixture of hockey is fighting, but it’s important to note that fighting is not allowed per the International Olympic Committee’s rulebook in both men's and women's tournaments. 

A typical hockey rink and the three zones of play. The blue denotes the crease, similar to a goal box in soccer. The goal sits at the end of each crease on the red goal line.

Ice hockey has long been a fixture of the Olympics, originally introduced in the Summer Olympics of 1920 and transferred to the Winter Olympics permanently in 1924. Men dominated the tournament until 1998, when the first women’s tournament took place. Since its inception, the women’s national team has medaled in all seven appearances, earning two golds, four silvers, and one bronze. Traditionally, the Canadian National Team and the U.S. National Team have been bitter rivals, most recently stoked again in November during the Rivalry Series. Canada has topped the U.S. four times in the six meetings between the two teams, and this year is bound to see another rivalry game between both countries.  

Canada and the U.S. will have one guaranteed meeting in the tournament this year. All teams were divided into two groups and will play a total of four round-robin games each to advance to the medal round. All five teams in Group A (the top five teams in the International Ice Hockey Federation's ranking) will advance, while the top three from Group B will advance as well. The U.S. and Canada are both in Group A, and will play each other once before the final round, where we could see a possible rematch with a medal on the line for both teams. Expect play to be physical, fast-paced, and technical. Women's hockey places an emphasis on skill and technique rather than big hits and fighting, so puck-handling and crafty plays should take center stage in Milan. 

It’s no secret that the United States’ roster for this year’s event is stacked with professional players and college athletes alike. Four players from the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) Seattle Torrent team have been selected for the roster: Defenseman Cayla Barnes, and Forwards Hannah Bilka, Hilary Knight, and Alex Carpenter. Knight, a five-time Olympian, and Captain of the first-year Seattle Torrent, is serving as Captain for the national team as well. Nicknamed “Captain America” because of her repeated Olympic appearances (5 career total), Knight is sure to make an impact for the Americans in their matchups against tougher opponents, namely the round-robin games. Her rival, Canadian Marie Philip Poulin, conversely called “Captain Clutch” for her three game winning goals in the 2010, 2014, and 2022 Olympic finals, is bound to give the Americans trouble. She is gunning for another gold to add to the collection of three, and her fifth Olympic games provides a perfect opportunity, should she get through Knight and the American team. 

Carpenter, one of Torrent's Alternate Captains, will perform leadership duties with an "A" on her jersey in Milan. Her chemistry with fellow Seattle linemates, Knight, and Bilka should not be understated. Bilka is at her second Olympics despite being just 23 and has previous chemistry with Knight, stemming from their time in Boston before Seattle. Their line has combined for eighteen points, nine for each forward, but can “Captain America” and her team top the Canadians to claim gold? The Rivalry Series in November, led by Knight, resulted in a sweep of the Canadian team, with the biggest victory occurring in a 10-4 game in the middle of the series. Alas, the duel of the captains will only get more passionate on the Olympic stage, which could pose a problem for the Americans. Expect a tight, intense game when these two meet on February 10^th. 

 Notable collegiate athletes include Kirsten Simms, a forward for Ohio State University, who scored the tying and game-winning goals for the Buckeyes in the NCAA championship game last year, and Caroline Harvey of Wisconsin, widely regarded as one of the best defensemen in the world. The U.S. rounds out their roster with Boston Fleet goalie, Aerin Frankel, a two-time gold medalist for the annual IIHF world championships.  

In addition to Captain America and the rest of the forwards, Seattle has the luxury of sending the second most players to Italy at four, just behind the Minnesota Frost, who won the championship Walter Cup last year, and will send six skaters to Milan. As Seattle steadily grows into a hockey city, women’s hockey is a key part of the fan base. Support for Seattle athletes will only serve to grow the game in the Pacific Northwest and might even lead to PWHL expansion teams (stay tuned for the possibility of new franchises in the spring!). 

The U.S. will open the tournament with a match against Czechia on Thursday, February 5^th, which has a 7:40 am PT puck drop. The rivalry match against Canada will happen at 11:10 am PT on Tuesday, February 10^th. You can watch both games, as well as the other round-robin matches, and medal round games on Peacock, or any NBC broadcast station. Radio broadcasts will be available on ESPN 710 Seattle, or iHeart Radio's NBCU channel.