PLYMOUTH, MI — In the run-up to the IIHF Women’s World Championship, the MVP of last year’s tournament—who led all players with seven goals a year ago—dropped about eight pounds.
And no, Hilary Knight didn’t do that on purpose.
“Yeah,” the 27-year-old said on Thursday, eyes widening beneath a straight-brimmed black USA ball cap. “I’ve been so stressed out.”
To say the last month or so has been tough would be a massive understatement. Up until a couple days ago, Knight didn’t think she or any of her Team USA teammates would be here to defend their world title, and on home soil, no less.
“It started to sink in that this is gonna be my ninth World Championships, and to think I wouldn’t be here for that, I was getting emotional,” says Knight, who’s a six-time world champion.
“But I leaned on my teammates—we were all in this together,” she said, just minutes after her team’s practice. “And here we are.”
Yes, here they are.
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On Thursday, the American women had their first pre-tournament practice in advance of the Women’s World Hockey Championship, which they’ll open Friday against their arch-rivals, Canada. Team USA is here—last-minute additions, really—after threatening to boycott the tournament unless USA Hockey gave them a new contract with fair pay and equitable support for girl’s and women’s programs.
Just two days ago, the two sides reached a deal.
Amanda Kessel, who’s making her return to Team USA after injuries kept her out of the lineup the last three years, says she’s most proud of the awareness the battle with USA Hockey brought to her team, and to her sport.
“Hopefully that will continue and people are paying attention more and watching us more and really seeing the value and talent that’s out there,” she said.
The new contract has made waves across the globe, and not only because the women got the support of politicians and athletes alike. Players have been approached by national team members from other countries to not only say congratulations, but to let them know they’re going to try to follow suit.
“I had a couple girls on my professional team this year, and they’re like, ‘We could probably do that same thing—we don’t get anything,’” Kessel said.
But the celebration over what Team USA has accomplished—it’s enormous, really, having generated an investment in development programs for girls in their country, and enabling elite women to actually make a living playing hockey—was pretty short, because there’s a tournament to play here.
And Team USA has to get prepared in a hurry.
Ordinarily, they would have opened training camp last Tuesday. But because of stalled negotiations—USA Hockey even tried to find replacement players, in case a deal didn’t get done, though they reportedly didn’t get many takers—this was the earliest they could get on the ice together.
At the end of their hour-long practice, the women met at centre ice in a huddle and yelled “USA!” Then they spent a good minute high-fiving and laughing.
“That’s the most excited I’ve been for practice in a long time,” said forward, Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson, grinning. “It’s always exciting to get together, but considering the circumstances, it’s really great to be back with this group and just get ready to play for tomorrow.”
Team USA hadn’t practiced together since a camp back in February, but Kessel said they haven’t wasted any time in getting prepared for their opener.
“Right away we set the tone, coming in yesterday,” she said. “What happened is behind us and we’re here to win. We got to business right away.”
Of course, there are and will be reminders about what they’ve done every day of this week-long tournament, which wraps up with the gold medal final next Friday. In the stands Thursday were a couple of teenagers who’d made the hour-and-a-half drive to watch the Americans practice, holding signs of support. One sign read: “Thank you for being BOLD”, a play on the hashtag the women created: #beboldforchange.
On her way off the ice, Knight handed a puck to one of the kids holding a sign. Captain Meghan Duggan looked up and said, “Thank you.”
The kids said “thank you” back.
You can expect to see a lot more signs of support when the host Americans play Canada on Friday at 7:30 p.m. ET.
“It’s gonna be an emotional game,” said Lamoureux.
No, the Americans didn’t get a chance to prepare as they would have liked, and they missed more than a week of practice time together. But they’ll be ready, if you ask Kessel.
“It’s easy, it’s Canada,” the 25-year-old said, grinning. “It’s where we wanna be.”
Knight can’t wait to get started on her ninth World Championship.
“I’m so pumped. I couldn’t wait to get here and just hug everybody and have that moment where we’re all together and be like, ‘We did this!’” she said.
“Now we’re gonna play Canada tomorrow. It’s really like a storybook, and we’ll go forward in the tournament, and hopefully we can win another one.
“I’m just so excited to get on the ice and whip that puck around.”
Knight will get the chance on Friday, eight pounds lighter than she was the last time she represented her country, but feeling very good, nonetheless.