Hayley Wickenheiser
Hayley Wickenheiser
Hayley Wickenheiser OCis a Canadian women's ice hockey player. She was the first woman to play full-time professional hockey in a position other than goalie. Wickenheiser is a member of the Canada women's national ice hockey team. She has represented Canada at the Winter Olympics five times, capturing four gold and one silver medal and twice being named tournament MVP, and one time at the Summer Olympics in softball. She has the most gold medals of any Canadian Olympian and...
ProfessionHockey Player
Date of Birth12 August 1978
CityShaunavon, Canada
We expected Italy to be weak. I don't know if we would have predicted that score, but we're not going to apologize for winning by that much. It's the Olympic Games and we've got a gold medal to try and win.
To defend the gold for our team and every Canadian back home is huge. For us, it's all gold or nothing. There's no other medal to win in this tournament. That's the pressure we put on ourselves. We're just happy we can land in Canada with everybody smiling.
We're expecting to go over and win the gold and defend the gold medal. Anything less would be disappointing for us. We know what we have to do. It's just a matter of doing it on the day when it counts the most.
To be Olympic champions for the second time in a row is great. It's definitely harder to defend gold than to win it.
It doesn't matter to me; we could fly under the radar all the way to the big game that we win and that would be fine.
...is to win the Olympic gold medal this year, that's for sure the biggest one.
It was painful. So I just tried to pass more than shoot.
It (Sweden's participation in the final) is great for the game.
It's great to see the other nations doing well, but as far as this tournament goes, we've got to be ready to beat the U.S.. We'll try not to think about it until the final, but it's always there. It has to be. We always play them, and it's a rivalry.
It was kind of a nice moment. It was exciting to get the 100th goal and to do it in Finland where I played before... it was sort of a neat feeling.
They made a huge banner and all the kids and staff signed it. It's a little hard to say goodbye to Noah. He's almost six now so he knows what's going on. He said 'I'll see you over there mom,' and gave me a stuffed animal to send me on my way - a shark, so I'll have that in my room.
We expected Italy to be weak, but we're not going to apologize for winning.
We did a great job and I am really happy for our team.
We are a pro team in every sense of the word outside of being paid like pro players.