Hilary Knight is one of the biggest contributors to Team USA’s success in women’s hockey over the past decade and she’s starting to attract some big names to the game of hockey.
The latest person that Knight has attracted to the women’s hockey world is perhaps the biggest Olympics fan in PyeongChang, Leslie Jones.
Jones is an SNL cast member that has been feverishly tweeting about everything Olympics since the beginning of the Games. In fact, it even got her an invite to Korea where one sport, and one person, seems to have captured her attention. Jones has become the women’s hockey team and Knight’s biggest fan.
She has started attending the team’s games and even though she had to fly back to New York, she’s still making sure to tune in to the gold-medal game.
So, how did this happen? It’s how anything happens these days, through the power of social media – more specifically, through the power of Knight’s social media.
Knight, in partnership with Bauer Hockey, has worked hard at trying to grow the game not just on the ice, but on social media with their #Women’sHockeyNeverStops campaign. Over the past couple of months, she’s been working hard to show a lighter side of her sport and personality through videos like these.
It’s this attitude that has offered fans a behind-the-scenes look at the life of an Olympian during the Games, earned her the nickname “Selfie Queen” from NBC and ultimately captured the attention of her biggest fan.
Jones is just one of many fans that we’re sure Knight has attracted with her social media enthusiasm, and it’s something she told us that she’s well aware of.
“I think it’s super important, because when you step away from the game, you want to say that you left it better off than when you started. I guess my goal is to reach as many people as I can and impact people’s lives in a positive way.”
Perhaps the only thing that could have made her social media accounts better at the Olympics could have been her dog Winston, who she wasn’t able to bring along with her.
“I was actually joking around with some of my teammates about bring my dog Winston – it would be so great if he could come. That would be an epic adventure for him. I think he’d love it because he loves cold weather; he loves hockey arenas.”
Still, she’s been able to attract a lot of new fans on her own. While we’re sure Jones has been one of the funniest fans she’s ever had, the most inspirational ones to come from her social media activity are still the children that she inspires to get into the game of hockey.
“I think the most special moment would have been the first time someone came up to me and freaked out and started crying. I’m just kind of looking at this person asking, ‘why are you crying?’ and she said ‘I’ve been following you, you’ve inspired me to play hockey’ and all this stuff.”
