Making Team USA: Meet Hilary Knight

The first time Hilary Knight paid attention to women's Olympic hockey, she was an 8-year-old at a slumber party in Illinois. She walked by a TV and saw part of the inaugural tournament at the 1998 Nagano Games - an event the US would eventually win.

The second time Knight took notice was that summer. "I fell on a barnacle in Maine, and at the doctor's office I saw a magazine with all the 1998 players in it. I remember Cammi Granato. She was the face of women's hockey. After that, I started going to her camps in Illinois. I broke both of my sticks at Cammi's camp and she let me use hers. I was beside myself." 

In the nearly 12 years that followed, Knight's natural talent and an unrelenting commitment to making a herself better player not only earned her a berth on the 2010 US Olympic team, but also the right to wear Granato's jersey number (21) and play on the same forward line as Jenny Potter, one of the members of that 1998 squad.

At 30, Potter is the oldest member of the team, and at 20, Knight is the youngest. Over the past two years, Potter, the petite blond center, has become a mentor to the towering brunette on the wing.

"We relate so well because we both know how it is to be an introvert," Potter said. "But we also view things similarly. We work hard and we didn't take things for granted growing up. And on the ice, she's never going to quit on you."

When they met in 2007, Potter had just given birth to her second child and Knight was a senior in high school still trying to integrate her skills into team situations. Although the pair roomed together at the 2007 World Championships in Winnipeg, Knight wasn't sure whether their paths would cross again.

                                                            * * *

Knight came from a family of alpine skiers that included her cousin, Chip, a three-time Olympian.  When Hilary was 6, her family left San Francisco (and their weekend ski trips to Lake Tahoe), and moved to Illinois where one of her mother's paddle-tennis friends suggested skating lessons for Hilary and her three younger brothers, Jamie, Remington, and William.

"If we made it across the ice a certain number of times, we'd get a button to put on our skates," Hilary said.

"In sixth or seventh grade, my dad asked, 'Hey, do you want to ski race or play hockey?'" she said. "I wasn't a bad racer; I did slalom. But skiing was scary. You only have that one run. In hockey, someone's always backing you up."

Knight played boys hockey until she was 13.

At 14, her parents gave her an opportunity to attend boarding school so she moved across the country to attend Choate, in Wallingford, Connecticut, whose alumnae included hockey Olympians Julie Chu and Angela Ruggiero.

At Choate, Knight also excelled in field hockey and lacrosse and was named All-New England in all three sports, but the rink had a special allure.

"There's something about stepping on the ice. Everything in your mind clears. It's like a sanctuary. If I had a bad day, I'd get on the ice and it would be a great evening. It was something to look forward to. It was a reward. I respected it that way."

In addition to competing for the Wild Boars, she played club hockey for the Connecticut Polar Bears where she played beyond her years. When she was 14, she played on an under-16 team. And when she could have played U-16, she was playing U-19.

"She was big enough to play defense," said Polar Bears coach Maurice FitzMaurice, but "she had tremendous speed. She also had broad shoulders and long arms. Her arms were so long that she could protect the puck."

Yet she still had much to learn.

"I was pretty much a raw player in high school," Knight said. "I didn't really know where to be and didn't really know the systems. I didn't really know anything."

During team strategy sessions, FitzMaurice he said, "You just saw these big saucer eyes every time you'd talk. She didn't want to miss anything."

As a high school senior, Knight was selected to try out for the national under-22 team and by November, joined the US senior team at the 2006 Four Nations Cup in Kitchener, Ontario.

Knight was 17 and her teammates and opponents had been competing internationally at the highest level for nearly a decade. "It was like going from high school to the Yankees," coach FitzMaurice said.

"At Four Nations, I was put on my heels," she admitted. "I didn't know what to do."  On a power play against Sweden in a round robin game, however, Ruggiero missed the net, the puck hit the backboard, Knight scooped it up, the goalie was out of the net and it went in. It was the sixth goal in a 7-0 victory for the US, and Knight's only point of the tournament in which the US placed second.

Five months later, Knight made it to an even bigger stage, the 2007 World Championships in Winnipeg, Canada, where she shared a room with Potter.

"It's funny, I'd forget the key," Knight said, "and the next time we'd leave she was, 'Do you have this?' I think she babysat me more than she was a roommate."

Given Knight's inexperience, she didn't play much. "I wasn't ready," she said, "but it allowed me to see the game in a different perspective. I saw all the things that worked and didn't work."

"I knew I had to get a lot faster," Knight said. "My hands needed to get better. Everything needed to increase a level and be fine tuned."

Fortunately, Knight had many college options. She says she was approached by 20 or 30 schools, including every Division 1 women's hockey team.

"I had no idea where I wanted to go," she said. "I'd walk around each campus looking for little things."

Two factors helped to seal her decision. On her visit to the University of Wisconsin, both of her hosts, Meghan Duggan and Erika Lawler (now forwards on the 2010 US Olympic team) had attended Cushing Academy in Massachusetts, so they understood the transition from East Coast boarding school life. Knight was also impressed by Wisconsin's fan base. (Women's hockey games draw an average of 1,500 fans, and for the past three seasons, the Badgers led the NCAA in attendance for women's hockey.)

Immediately after watching a game, she told her parents she was returning to the heartland. "They told me to wait a month because they thought I was star struck," she said. But there was no wavering.

After Knight graduated from high school in 2007, she moved to Madison and began playing for Mark Johnson, a member of the 1980 Miracle on Ice team and now the head coach of the 2010 women's Olympic team.

"I think people had high expectations because I was on the national team the year before college," Knight said, "and I didn't think I met them."

Her freshman year, Wisconsin lost the 2008 National Championships to University of Minnesota-Duluth. "It struck me as really painful, so I made it my personal thing to get stronger, keep up with the play, and dominate certain parts of the ice," she said.

An even bigger blow came when Knight was not invited back for the Four Nations Cup. "I wasn't even a contender for [USA] holiday camp," she said. "I think they wanted to see how I'd do at the college level. But then Meghan Duggan got a concussion so I got invited to the camp at Christmas. I came with no expectations. I just played."

Knight earned a spot - and a gold medal - at the 2008 World Championships in Harbin, China, where she re-united with Potter. But Knight didn't score and she realized more work was required.

Potter encouraged Knight to work out with her in Minnesota for a few months. So during the summer between her freshman and sophomore years, Knight stayed with Potter, her husband Rob and their two children and attended Potter's "Pure Hockey" camp in Coon Rapids.

"It's not for the weak-hearted or weak-minded," Knight said. "Once you've done Potter's training, you can do anything. I wish I would have gone sooner.'

The program's intensity has been compared to an NHL training camp, but it involved much more than weights, muscle-busting plyometrics, and nausea-inducing sprints on the ice. Knight also learned to recognize patterns and know when to leave systems and do things differently. And as soon as Rob Potter, the camp coach, put Knight and his wife on the same line, they started scoring like crazy.

"Now," Rob said, "you can see that Hilary's really getting it. Not only is she scoring, but she's getting concepts and knows when to go to the net and when to get passes. Now not only can she shoot, but she adds play-making opportunities. Her play is getting much more complex and cerebral."

Knight returned to Wisconsin as a sophomore and led the NCAA with 45 goals, 43 assists, 83 points, and 16 power play goals and helped Wisconsin win the 2009 NCAA National Championship, shutting out Mercyhurst, 5-0.

At the 2009 World Championships in Hameenlinna, Finland, Knight led the tournament in scoring, with seven goals as the US won its second consecutive world title, defeating Canada in the final once again.

As line-mates in Finland, Potter and Knight proved the potency of their bond. "Certain people complement each other," Rob Potter said. "The two of them together comes to a higher sum."

Coach Johnson agreed. "Part of Hilary's growth has been around Jenny. She's gone from being a fourth-liner on the national team to being a top forward in a small window. It's a credit to her commitment. And what we saw last spring is that Jenny's also rubbed off on Hilary. On the ice, they have the same work ethic, intensity level."

"I love playing with her," Knight says of Potter. "She's quick and got a great shot. She sees ice like nobody. She'll find you."

The scary thing, said Jenny Potter, is that Knight "has a lot more to give," and the four-time Olympian is sure that Knight also will be a leader on the team someday.

Like that other No. 21?

Knight is far too humble to entertain such a thought.

As Knight explained to Granato upon being re-introduced at the 2009 World Championships, "I just want to wear it well."

Aimee Berg is a freelance contributor for teamusa.org. This story was not subject to the approval of the United States Olympic Committee or any National Governing Bodies.

Tags: Hilary Knight, Jenny Potter , Making Team USA, USA Women's Hockey, Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games