How Winning Olympic Gold Was a Dream Come True for Frost Star Taylor Heise

Heise spoke with Sports Illustrated about helping Team USA win gold in Milan Cortina, and what it was like dealing with the controversies off the ice after.

Heise helped Team USA to a gold medal in her first Olympics appearance. | EyesWideOpen/Getty Images

Making the Olympic women’s hockey team was a dream for Taylor Heise since she first picked up a hockey stick at age eight. This year in Milan Cortina, Heise’s longtime goal came true. 

The 26-year-old made the roster of 23 players, 12 of whom were first-time Olympians, for Team USA to represent the red, white and blue at the 2026 Winter Games. Heise narrowly missed making the 2022 Olympic roster, so joining the U.S. this year meant everything to her. It still sometimes doesn’t feel real that she had the opportunity to compete in the Olympics.

“It was obviously a dream of mine for a very long time,” Heise said in an interview with Sports Illustrated. “To now have finished it, I wish I could go back. I wrote in my journal and did all the things you normally would do. … Sometimes I forget [I played in the Olympics], and then I have to remember—it makes it even more special [to be reminded].”

Heise’s first Olympic run was an incredible one, to say the least. Team USA won its third Olympic gold medal in women’s hockey, beating Canada in a thrilling 2–1 overtime win. Megan Keller scored the game-winning goal thanks to an assist from Heise. Talk about taking advantage of a big moment.

Competing in that gold medal game was an experience Heise will never forget. Heading into the game, Heise tried not to psych herself out. Although she’d never competed in an Olympic gold medal game, she’s played in four World Championship title tilts (winning two gold and two silver medals), and she won three gold medals while playing with the under-18 Team USA squad. She’s a veteran when it comes to high pressure games, even if the Olympic stage was a new animal for her.

“I knew as long as I went out there and gave my full effort, my team was going to back me and know that we’d all be out there giving max effort all the time,” Heise says. “It was a dream of mine, but I wanted to make sure that I didn’t just sit in awe that I was in a gold medal game. This is what I’ve worked for my whole life. I’ve played in all these gold medal games and world championships leading up since I was 15. Just trying to take all the things that I’ve learned but go out there and be me.”

Having the gold medal placed over her head on the ice in Milan was such a surreal moment for Heise. She just remembers laughing at how her wildest dreams came true. She keeps the medal in a safe now, along with her other medals from other international tournaments.

Heise, left, and Grace Zumwinkle, right, are also teammates on the PWHL’s Minnesota Frost. | RvS.Media/Monika Majer/Getty Images

Heise has been bitten by the Olympic bug as she intends to keep competing for Team USA in 2030 when the French Alps host the Winter Games.

Heise quickly had to shift her focus back to the PWHL days after returning from Milan Cortina. She now faces her Team USA teammates across the ice instead of on the same side. Her Minnesota Frost will be looking to three-peat this season after winning the previous two PWHL titles. Since this is just the third year of the PWHL, that means the Frost are the only team to ever capture the Walter Cup. Heise’s name is all over the PWHL history books as she was actually the first ever player drafted to the league as the Frost selected her No. 1 overall in the inaugural 2023 draft. Minnesota clinched a playoff spot on April 4.

“It’s definitely hard to transition from the U.S. side to the PWHL,” Heise says. “It was a dream to be on [Team USA]—it’s also a dream to be on the Frost—but that team is the best team I’ve ever been on. To be surrounded by so many cool girls, your time with them is limited. And then you play against them. … We’re playing against the best now, and the best are my teammates on Team USA. Definitely an odd feeling.”

Heise discusses President Trump’s ‘distasteful’ joke

We couldn’t talk about the women’s team’s gold medal win without addressing the biggest elephant in the room: President Donald Trump’s “distasteful” joke (as captain Hilary Knight called it) while on the phone with the men’s team about having to invite the women’s team along with the men’s to his State of the Union address, otherwise he’d be “impeached.” The moment was caught on video and went viral. Many of the men’s players admitted afterwards that they wished they reacted differently to the “joke.” Both the men’s and women’s teams remain adamant that they support one another and feel no ill will towards each other.

“I think this is a really good learning point to focus on how we talk about women, not only in sport but in industry. Women aren’t less than. Our achievements shouldn't be overshadowed by anything else other than how great they are,” Knight said back on Feb. 25 on SportsCenter.

Similarly to what Knight said, Heise hopes people can continue to celebrate Team USA’s major accomplishment and not just focus on the negativity sparked by the viral phone call. 

“At the end of the day, it’s hockey and we won a gold medal. That’s what I want the consensus of the conversations to be focused on,” Heise says.

The women’s team has kept their group chat “flowing” since the video came to light. The teammates supported one another during a time when the narrative around their gold medal win was more dismissive than it should’ve been. The team designated Knight, Keller and Alex Carpenter as the spokeswomen of the situation so that the conversation and focus could pivot back to excitement around the gold medal win.

“The biggest thing for me is I wanted Hilary, Meg and Carp and them to be able to speak on it,” Heise says. “For them, they’ve been fighting for not only equality in women’s and men’s sports, but just the way that we’re talked about and the way that we’re looked at.”

Heise is no stranger to dealing with the discrepancies in a male-dominated sport. At age eight, Heise started playing hockey on a co-ed team. She knows what it’s like to be constantly compared to boys and have her achievements be stacked up against theirs: “The guys in my grade when I was younger judged the facts of how the game went and if I didn’t score enough goals,” she shared. She has two brothers, too, meaning her success in sports somewhat automatically was compared to theirs.

As a professional female athlete now, Heise knows she’ll never be able to get 100% support from everyone in the world—that’s impossible. Her social media comments still occasionally include people saying hockey is a men’s sport, or that she can’t achieve what men’s hockey players can do. Over time, Heise has learned how to block out the noise and instead surround herself with people who don’t compare her to men. She wants people to think of “hockey being hockey” instead of “men’s hockey” and “women’s hockey.” 

“People on social media are not always the nicest. I always try to reel myself back in and just make sure that the way that I present myself is the way I want people to see me,” Heise says. “I want to be authentic. I want to be who I am for a reason when little girls meet me in the stands or at games or even at the grocery store—I want them to see who I am authentically and not be scared to approach [me]. … When I’m on the ice, I want people to see that. I’m a playmaker, I’m a goal scorer, I do things for a reason and I’m very authentic.”

Heise hopes people use Trump’s comment as a learning moment to not constantly pit the men’s and women’s hockey teams against each other. They both equally impressed the world by winning gold medals at the Olympic Games, the first time both U.S. teams won in the same year. It should be a time of celebration.

The women’s team plans to continue celebrating their Olympic win this summer with rapper Flavor Flav, who invited Team USA to the July “She Got Game” event in Las Vegas. The Americans privately accepted Flavor Flav’s invite, but it’s unknown now how many players will actually get to attend. The PWHL season ends in May, but the players will be gearing up for the World Championships this November, and it’s hard for them to take time off. Heise couldn’t confirm whether she plans to attend the celebration, but she hopes to make it.

Heise was the No. 1 pick by the Frost in the 2023 PWHL draft. | Erick Rasco / Sports Illustrated

“I know a lot of us don’t take a time off just with the World Championships in November, but I know we would love to be there,” Heise says. “Someone like him, especially a male who wants to come out and speak so highly of us and female Olympians in general. We support the men, don’t get me wrong, but a girl’s weekend sounds like so much fun.”

Team USA winning the gold brought Heise a much bigger social following, and she’s using this opportunity to spread the word about hockey in hopes to interest more young girls to try the sport. She believed in herself and in her dream to play hockey, and this is a message she relays to young girls when they ask for advice at the grocery store, on Cameo or in her direct messages.

“My biggest message is I want you to love what you do,” Heise says. “Being able to love your sport and be respectful to your teammates is big.”

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