SportTechie’s Athletes Voice series features the views and opinions of the athletes who use and are powered by technology. SportTechie caught up with Olympic hockey gold medalist and world champion Hilary Knight about mindfulness, paying collegiate athletes, and her experience on SNL last year.
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Hilary Knight has won at almost every level of hockey and may be one of the best players of all time. She won a national championship in her sophomore year at Wisconsin in 2009, and another in 2011. She won the Clarkson Cup with the CWHL’s Boston Blades in 2013, and the inaugural Isobel Cup with the NWHL’s Boston Pride in 2016. Knight also has seven world championship gold medals with Team USA, and helped the U.S. win its second ever Olympic title at PyeongChang 2018. She currently plays for Les Canadiennes de Montreal of the CWHL.
Knight previously talked to SportTechie in December 2017, as she was busy getting ready for the Winter Olympics. Back then she detailed her use of wearables and how they help her search for tiny improvements. She also explained how she had been using YouTube to give fans a better appreciation of her training.
Her success and growing list of awards have allowed Knight to become a leader in boosting the popularity and standing of women’s hockey. Before the 2018 Winter Olympics, she and her teammates fought for, and won, a battle for equal pay from USA Hockey. Last year, soon after winning in PyeongChang, she appeared alongside Leslie Jones on Saturday Night Live.
Training and Recovery
“In addition to my Suunto training watch, a brand that I’ve worked with since I was young, I also use the Myzone heart rate monitor. A lot of my teammates also use this, and, while I’m training alone, it allows me to compete and compare myself to the team when everyone is training in different cities.”
“For recovery, I like using the TheraGun. This is a recovery device that looks like a drill and uses trigger point vibration, but there is no temperature to it. It’s the same idea as having a foam roller on you—it helps increase blood flow, muscle activation, and really loosens you up.
“Bedgear is another product that I use to help me sleep. Their products [including pillows, sheets, and mattresses] are cooling and help make for a better night’s sleep. They actually recently came in and fitted our entire team for pillows, and I even brought my travel one with me to Korea for the Olympics.”
Technological Mindfulness
“I also use the Brainwaves app. If I need to relax, I’ll put on my headphones and turn on some binaural beats [tones with slightly different frequencies played in each ear] that are soothing. I’ll also use the app if I take a pregame nap and need to get going again—I’ll just turn on a different [stimulating] wavelength that gets me ready to play.
“Sometimes on game day, I’ll use an app that tells stories through guided breathing. But meditation is definitely something that I try and do at least five minutes everyday, and it’s a great way to recharge. Depending on my daily schedule, which can change a lot with travel, games, and workouts—sometimes I’m up at 4:30 a.m.—I still always make sure to get my five minutes in. It’s really important to me.”
Compensating Student-Athletes
“In college [at Wisconsin], if we worked at a hockey camp, we were not allowed to be paid as experts because as a student-athlete, you cannot make more than someone in that field. I do think that education is a form of payment, but also think that compensating collegiate athletes to a certain degree would be awesome.
“NCAA athletes definitely need guidance before making [the decision to hire agents.] Student-athletes should be cautious of letting agents in who are not looking out for their best interest. In many sports, especially women’s hockey, a lot of the time you can set yourself up to earn way more while in college—and I was treated super well during my time at Wisconsin—but the whole ‘paying student-athletes’ situation is very delicate.”
Skating Downhill
“Red Bull Crashed Ice is thrilling. It’s an entirely new sport that combines hockey with skiing in a luge track. The fact that it is being hosted at Fenway Park is so iconic in itself, but Crashed Ice is such a fast sport, terrifying, exciting to watch, and cool to see two different worlds collide.
“A bunch of my former college opponents are Crashed Ice athletes, and they all train specifically for this type of course. For me personally—growing up on ice, skating my entire life, and being an Olympic athlete—I would never pretend to be an expert going down that thing. I have a lot of respect for those guys, especially at those speeds and because of how steep it is.”
From Live Sports to SNL
“[Saturday Night Live] was awesome. It was a lot of fun. It was really cool to see behind-the-scenes and how everything works over there. Everyone needs to be so sharp, and the whole cast and crew is in sync and on the same page. It really felt like a team.
“There is so much camaraderie backstage. It was interesting to see that, how everyone supports one another. Because that’s something that I’ve really only experienced with my teammates.
“I loved meeting Migos and sharing the stage with ‘Lesdoggg’ [Leslie Jones]—she’s hysterical. But SNL is obviously live television, so you really do have to be funny. It’s basically do-or-die once you’re out there and you really do have to perform well. Almost like Gold Medal stakes.
“After the show, I ran into Lorne [Michaels] in the hallway and told him that I would definitely come back if he ever wanted me. I was actually invited to the season finale, but wasn’t able to make it because of a scheduling conflict. But hosting SNL would be a dream come true.”
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