Hilary Knight: USA
Ok fine, you caught us. If there’s another name you absolutely have to know ahead of Milano Cortina 2026, it’s Hilary Knight of the United States.
Knight, much like Poulin, has never been content with simply putting pucks in the net.
From her earliest days as the lone girl on boys’ teams, she understood that playing hockey as a woman meant constantly proving that you belonged. The teasing rolled off, the bruises healed, but the lesson stuck: you had to be tougher, louder, sharper, just to get the same respect.
Years later, with Olympic medals hanging around her neck, Knight would insist her proudest accomplishment wasn’t scored on the ice at all, but earned in the fight for fairness. “We were a success, by any and all measures. But we were not seen as equals to the men,” she wrote for the CBC.
That simmering inequality boiled over in 2017.
With the world championships looming on home soil, Knight and her teammates drew a line. Unless USA Hockey provided proper funding, visibility, and support, they would not play. For over two weeks, the standoff dragged on, and at the last possible moment, USA Hockey blinked.
The women got what they wanted: improved pay, real benefits, and commitments to push the game forward. They then pulled on the national jersey once again and won the championship.
“We said we would play again as soon as we got fair treatment and equitable support, and that’s exactly what we did. And we won the tournament,” Knight said.
That win was bigger than gold. It was proof that women’s hockey was ready for the spotlight it deserved and that Knight’s voice, as much as her shot, had become one of the sport’s most powerful instruments.
She recently captained her team to world championship gold, and eyes the same spot on the podium next year in Milan.