Hilary Knight is a 4-time Olympian on the U.S. women’s hockey team. She led her team to the gold medal in the 2017 World Championship and the 2018 Winter Olympics.
In 2017, she realized that female hockey athletes were not as supported as male hockey athletes, and in turn, she began pursuing equal pay among female hockey athletes. The Women’s U.S. Hockey team even threatened to boycott the 2017 championship unless pay equity and playing conditions were met. Support was seen from top U.S. senators, including Elizabeth Warren, Diane Feinstein, Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar.
Two years later, the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association, or PWHPA, formed. The association aims to protect and support all female hockey players in hopes of creating a flagship professional women’s hockey league.
Hilary Knight continues to be very outspoken about women’s rights in hockey and cites the lack of exposure they receive even after highly publicized events, e.g. the Olympics.
“The gap is definitely shrinking, which is awesome from a 30,000-foot viewpoint,” said Hilary Knight.
Despite the Women’s U.S. Hockey team performing better at the Olympics, they are paid significantly less than the men’s team. For reference, professional female hockey players receive a maximum salary of $15,000 a year while professional male hockey players receive anywhere from $12.5 million to a minimum of $750,000.
While women’s hockey in general has been receiving more attention and enhancing their exposure, there is still so much to be done.
“I’m really excited for these younger players to have their first Olympic experience because they’re so talented, and to think that if they can have a career path with this, and they don’t have to work a second job, and they don’t have to do all these other things, they can just play hockey if they choose to play hockey and get supported the way that they should, how much better they’re gonna be,” said Knight.