February 17 celebrates the 28th anniversary of the United States women’s hockey team winning its first Olympic gold medal at the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics. The team defeated longtime rival Canada 3-1 in a historic final.
The United States prevented Canada from scoring for most of the game, building a 2-0 lead before Canada finally broke through. In the final moments, Shelley Looney secured the victory by scoring into an empty net, bringing the score to 3-1.
The win was a significant accomplishment as Canada dominated the sport in the decade prior. Since 1990, Canada has defeated the United States four times in the World Hockey Championship. Despite this, the gap between the two rivals narrowed. Three days before the final gold medal game, the United States staged a dramatic comeback against Canada, coming back from a 3-1 deficit to score six goals. The team clinched a 7-4 victory.
Captain Karyn Bye immediately wrapped herself in an American flag. It was the first time anyone on the team competed in the Olympics. Looney emphasized the importance of her teammates in that moment. “But it’s even more special because you didn’t do it alone,” she said. “You did it with 19 other women. Nobody can take away winning a gold medal together.”
The United States would not win another Olympic gold medal until 2018 in PyeongChang, South Korea, earning silver at every Games in between. Still, the impact of the 1998 victory extended beyond medals and paved the way for the next generation of young female hockey players. Since Nagano, the number of girls and women playing hockey in the United States has tripled from 28,000 in 1998 to more than 88,000 in 2023.
Blake Bolden, the first Black athlete drafted by a women’s professional hockey team, traces her own dreams back to the 1998 win. “My biggest dream was to be an Olympian,” Bolden said. “I told my mom and dad that when I was a young girl, and I saw the 1998 team.”
Many players on the 1998 roster team grew up playing hockey in a male-dominated field, often registering under different names or nicknames, such as “Stephen” instead of “Stephanie.” Bye recalls boys taking an extra run or an extra hit when they realized a girl was on the ice. But in the decades since the 1990s, the number of young women and girls registering for programs has skyrocketed, and the number of programs for them has grown.
The gold medal win in Nagano shaped the future of women’s hockey in the United States, inspiring an entire new generation of young athletes.
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