Hockey Champ Hilary Knight Opens Up About Her Engagement to Brittany Bowe and Joining the Detroit Clutch

If anyone knows how to absolutely dominate the wedding proposal game, it’s sapphics — particularly those on ice skates. This February, gold medalist and ice hockey champion Hilary Knight got down on one knee at the Milan Olympics to propose to her now-fiancée, professional speed skater Brittany Bowe.“Olympics brought us together. This one made us forever,” the couple wrote in a joint post on February 18. See on Instagram The announcement wowed sapphic sports fans, but how did the two professional athletes go from their first date during lockdown at the Beijing Olympics in 2022 to popping the question during the same sporting event four years later?Though Knight and Bowe, both seasoned Olympic athletes, have run in parallel professional settings throughout their individual careers, it wasn’t until 2022 that they were brought together in a strictly regulated Olympic village with tight COVID-19 countermeasures. This time, they were able to go on an actual date, even if that just meant taking walks together and talking.“Because the world was shut down, that really gave us an opportunity to get to know each other,” Knight tells Them. “I usually have a crazy travel schedule, so I’m always training or buzzing around [...] I think having the runway to be able to just get to know one another was so important for us. And I think that's the silver lining out of a really weird Olympic experience.”The instant spark ignited a lasting romance that has burned strong for four years now, amid complex and occasionally opposing sports and travel schedules. Knight says they always make time for one another in spite of the circumstances. Because Knight and Bowe are both still involved in their respective sports, those in-between moments have become all the more important.“I think we just appreciate time together,” Knight says. “When we do get time, we love to cross-train, go biking in the mountains, hikes.”Given their intense schedules as professional athlete