It was a thrilling win for Team USA when their women’s hockey team beat Canada and took home the gold medal in sudden death overtime Thursday.
The stands in Italy were plenty wild, but there were also chants and cheers in the basement of a home in suburban Orland Park for a watch party hosted by Kendall Coyne Schofield’s family.
“Everyone is super supportive all the way from people we haven’t meet or been with in a long time to people we see on a day-to-day basis and everyone here for one goal,” said Joe Koch, Kendall’s brother-in-law.
The family of Schofield and her husband held a special watch party for their closest family and friends. Everyone had their eyes glued to the TV.
“My stress level is sky high, my son just texted me from the game and he’s really stressed,” said Michael Schofield, Kendall’s father-in-law. “It’s exciting, we knew it was going to be like this, but it’s stressful.”
Team USA last took home gold when they beat Canada in the 2018 Winter Olympics, and now they’ve achieved that feat in two of the last three Olympics.
Fans of the sport said there’s a lot of history between the two teams.
Team USA’s star forward, who set the U.S. women’s hockey Olympic scoring record in the gold medal game against Canada, credits her teammates for motivating her.
“The history between Canada and USA goes back to literally when the Olympics started,” said Koch. “Canada claims that they are the best in hockey they created it and we showed them time and time again USA knows how to deliver and how to compete and battle against them.”
Three players on the team have ties to the Chicagoland area. Team captain Hillary Knight is from Lake Forest and Abbey Murphy is from Evergreen Park. Schofield is originally from Palos Heights.
“Every time you see it on TV, we’re her hometown of Palos Heights, Illinois,” said Mayor Robert Straz. “I mean we don’t get a lot of that so being a small suburban Chicago area town so we’re proud of that we’re proud of her and her family too.”
U.S. women’s hockey hero Megan Keller says she has not seen a replay of her game-winning goal against Canada.
The community is thrilled for their hometown Olympians to make it this far and said it’s been fun to watch them compete.
“It was amazing thank God we have paramedics here my heart was pounding to see USA scored with a couple of minutes left was amazing,” said Schofield. “This whole place went crazy like I said in the beginning it was going to come down to the last couple of seconds I’m so happy for Kendall and the team.”
