Women's hockey star Hilary Knight says 2026 Olympics will be her last

Field Level Media|published: Tue 20th May, 16:37 2025

USA's Hilary Knight passes the puck at the Adirondack Bank Center in Utica, NY on Saturday, April 6, 2024.

United States women's hockey great Hilary Knight said the 2026 Milan Olympics will be the final one of her stellar career, USA Today reported Tuesday.

It will be Knight's fifth Olympic Games. She has won one gold medal and three silvers. The gold came in 2018.

"It's time," Knight told USA Today. "I have grown up in this program and it's just given me so much. I'm at peace. I just have this feeling that it's time. And I'm grateful that -- hopefully, I can stay healthy and everything -- I can go out when I'd like to be done. That is such a privilege that only a handful of competitors get."

If the U.S. wins a medal in Milan, Knight would become the first American woman to win five Olympic hockey medals.

"I‘ve had an incredible career at the Olympic stage," Knight said. "And (in Milan) I will have the same mission and the same purpose, and that's to win an Olympic gold."

Knight had a regulation-time goal when the U.S. famously beat Canada in a shootout to win the 2018 gold medal in South Korea.

Knight, 35, indicated she plans to continue playing in the Professional Women's Hockey League after the Olympics. But she doesn't see herself playing the sport into 2030 when the Olympics will be held in the French Alps.

Knight scored a league-high 29 points for the Boston Fleet of the PWHL this season.

Across all levels of U.S. national team play, Knight has 161 goals and 125 assists in 243 games. She has won 10 women's world championship medals, the most recent coming in April.

The resident of Sun Valley, Idaho was a college star at Wisconsin and helped the Badgers win two national championships.

--Field Level Media