A New Generation of USA Women’s Hockey heads to Milan Hungry for Gold

For years, superstars like Hilary Knight and Kendall Coyne Schofield have dominated headlines when it came to the U.S. Women’s National Team. And over that time, fans of all ages have worn Knight’s number 21 and watched as the American played at numerous IIHF Women’s World Championships, Rivalry Series matchups, and, of course, Olympic Winter Games.

Fans celebrated when Coyne Schofield made headlines during her spectacular performance at the 2019 NHL Skills Competition, had success on the national stage and chronicled it all in her memoir.

When the PWHL launched in 2023 there was suddenly a unified league in which the best women in the world could showcase their abilities night in and night out, with full resources, full coaching and training staff, and visibility.

The veterans continue to shine in a new structure and organization. Coyne Schofield has captained the Minnesota Frost team to back-to-back Walter Cups, while Knight led the league in points last season and is currently leading the expansion Seattle Torrent in assists.

But even as these star players continue to dominate the game of hockey, they also enter the latter stages of their respective careers. Milano Cortina 2026 will mark Knight’s last Olympic Games. “It’s also not lost on me that five Olympics is pretty substantial, so [I’m] really looking forward to just enjoying the journey and, when we get there, just unleashing another level,” she said.

In the years since the PWHL first dropped the puck in January of 2024, these veterans have been joined in the headlines by a new generation of American superstars. Taylor Heise, the number one overall draft pick in the inaugural PWHL draft in 2023, has become one of the league’s best players , teaming with Coyne Schofield to with the first two PWHL Walter Cup championships. The 25-year-old Heise was also hugely impactful player at the most recent World Championships, where she had five points in seven games, and the most recent Rivalry Series, in which she scored nine points in four games.

Another rising star is Rory Guilday, who only made her PWHL debut this season but has burst onto the scene with the Ottawa Charge. Guilday finds herself right near the top of the point totals for not just rookies but all PWHL defenders at the Olympic break.

Guilday credits the PWHL for giving elite players a place to showcase their talent and she is ready to show her stuff in Milano Cortina 2026. “There is such a high caliber of athletes in this league and it just shows what we’re made of that so many players are going to be in the Olympics,” said the 23-year-old.

Other American PWHL skaters making their Olympic debuts in Milano Cortina 2026 include Hannah Bilka, the 24-year-old forward from the Torrent; Britta Curl-Salemme, age 25, another high-scoring champion from the Frost; and 22-year-old Haley Winn, who is playing a PWHL-best 27:39 per game for the Boston Fleet.

It’s not just young American skaters that are making waves on the international level, but the netminders as well. Aerin Frankel, one of the best goaltenders in the world, is another key player making her way to Italy this February. The 26-year-old Frankel has been the most important piece of a Fleet team that owns the best record in the PWHL so far this season.

Frankel is joined in the Team USA crease by her former teammate at Northeastern University, the Ottawa Charge’s Gwyneth Philips, winner of last season’s Ilana Kloss Playoff MVP award.

These seven Olympic first-timers from the PWHL will be joined by seven American collegians, five of whom will also be making their Olympic debuts and all of whom should be appearing in PWHL arenas before long. Overall, 12 members of the 23-player squad named by general manager Katie Million and head coach John Wrobleski will be playing in their first Olympic Winter Games, and they are all 26 years old or younger.

Conversely, only seven members of the rival Canadian team will be making their debuts and only five of them are 26 or younger. This is relevant because, the fact is, that on the global stage, the US will always be judged in comparison with their rivals to the north, Canada. Since women’s hockey debuted at the Olympic Winter Games in 1998, these two North American countries have met in the gold-medal game at six of seven tournaments. Only in 2006 did another nation make an appearance in the gold medal game—when Sweden surprised the hockey world by beating the United States in the semifinals, eventually taking home silver. The United States won the inaugural Games before Canada established supremacy, winning four straight golds from 2002 to 2014. In 2018, a hungry Team USA took the top spot, only for Canada to reclaim it in 2022.

“The US and Canada rivalry is like no other. It's deep rooted in a long line of games and Olympics and World Championships that have been [basically] fought to the death,” said Team USA defender Cayla Barnes. The 27-year-old Barnes will be making her third Olympic Winter Games appearance in Milano Cortina and understands what it is like to lay it all out on the line for your country.

“Every time we step on the ice, you have so much pride in your country and where you come from, it doesn’t matter who's on the other side of the rink, you want to win—that's what we all feel. Once we get on the ice, all bets are off. You are fighting for your country, you are fighting for something bigger than yourself, and we all take a lot of pride in that,” Barnes added.

Leading up to Milano Cortina 2026, the US seems to have the upper hand in the rivalry, winning the 2025 World Championship in overtime and sweeping last fall’s Rivalry Series. While the incumbents had their say in those games, the new blood on the team made a huge contribution towards making it such a dominant stretch for the United States.

Despite the returnees from Olympics of years past, this new generation of American hockey players will be the contingent that drive the nation's gold medal hopes forward just as they have been doing in the PWHL. The Olympics serve as the greatest stage in hockey, and these players are perfectly positioned to capitalize on the success and momentum that they have been building in the PWHL.

To many, just making an Olympic roster would be considered an achievement, but this new face of US hockey will not be satisfied with anything other than a gold medal. As other PWHL-player-bolstered teams like Czechia, Finland and Sweden grow, the likelihood of winning gold becomes even more of a challenge, but based on their recent successes, the U.S. is a clear favorite to win gold in Milano Cortina.

The moment for Team USA—new and experienced players alike—is here.