From Hilary Knight’s prolific goal-scoring to Connor Hellebuyck’s reflexive saves, the United States (U.S.) men’s and women’s hockey teams impressed in their gold medal campaigns at the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. Of the spectacular events and competitions that took place at the 2026 Games, hockey was one of the biggest spectacles. The U.S. won both gold medals, asserting themselves as a powerhouse in the hockey scene.
Coming into the 2026 Winter Olympics, the men’s and women’s ice hockey teams had high expectations. For the women, gold was the standard and the expectation based on past results, yet they still exceeded their predicted results by dominating their competition.
“The last time that the women’s team played in 2022, they smoked everyone,” Christopher Zhang (12) said. “So, this year, I expected them to do well. Not as well as they actually did this time around, but I did expect them to win gold.”
For the men’s team, expectations were high, yet teams including Canada, Sweden and Finland also served as legitimate contenders for the gold medal.
“As for the men’s [team], we did not win last time, but I still had a lot of hope going into this year’s Olympics because Russia was not allowed to play,” Zhang said. “I didn’t expect us to win gold because the Canadian team was very strong. They had a lot of good [National Hockey League] NHL players on their team this year.”
At the close of the 2026 Games, both the men’s and women’s hockey teams achieved the highest honor of Olympic gold through similar finals. Both teams won their respective final two to one in overtime versus Canada. In the men’s final, a fantastic performance by goalkeeper Connor Hellebuyck and an emphatic winner scored by Jack Hughes led the US to their first gold medal victory in 46 years.
“It’s such an incredible feat that the U.S. hockey team just won gold [for the first time] in over 46 years,” Clark Wang (11) said. “I think a lot of people are going to be more interested in hockey now.”
The women clinched a comeback win against Canada after a late equalizer by Hilary Knight and an overtime winner scored by Megan Keller. The success of both teams brought more attention to ice hockey in general, as many Americans watched their hockey teams win gold.
“I don’t think most people pay attention to ice hockey, but I really do like the possibility now that we have won another gold medal for the U.S. … that more people will begin to have interest in ice hockey,” Zhang said.
In addition to attracting more attention to ice hockey, the success of both the men’s and women’s teams has brought a sense of patriotism and unity. Americans are proud of their athletes and their performance on the ice, especially the two finals wins against rival Canada.
“It’s going to be a lot more patriotic because we beat Canada twice,” Wang said. “It’s just sort of something that we’ll be proud of going forward, that we did this.”