“We really think that women’s hockey has developed so much that people won’t say like they did in 2010 that women’s hockey shouldn’t be at the Olympics. “They can deliver a good product. They can deliver great games.” WOMEN’S TRIPLE GOLD CLUB? The IIHF’s “Triple Gold Club” of men who have won a Stanley Cup, Olympic gold medal and world championship gold medal is a quarter-century old. There’s currently 30 players, including 11 Canadian players and Canadian coach Mike Babcock, in it. The NHL was a 30-team league when the IIHF established the TGC in 2001. Expansion talk in the six-team Professional Women’s Hockey League now in its second season has planted the seed of a women’s Triple Gold Club in the future. “We were talking about this already at the historical committee,” Kolbenheyer said. “This question is already on the table. There is no decision yet.” The U.S. roster in Ceske Budejovice has a handful of players who won the PWHL’s inaugural Walter Cup with the Minnesota Frost in 2024, a world championship in 2023 or 2019 and an Olympic gold medal in 2018: Forwards Kendall Coyne Schofield, Kelly Pannek, defender Lee Stecklein and goaltenders Nicole Hensley and Maddie Rooney. “To be celebrated for winning championships would mean a lot,” Coyne Schofield said.