Feldman: A Taylor-made gold medal for Lake City native, U.S. women's hockey team

Feb. 19—MILAN, Italy — A few minutes before 2 p.m. CST on Wednesday, Taylor Heise made a post to her Instagram account. The Lake City native long ago mastered the art of social media, so it was no shock to see five photos pop up on her @taylorheise9 page. This post was different than anything she's done before, though.

The five photos were all of her and her United States women's hockey teammates, a recap in images of their experience over the past two weeks at the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympic Games. The last photo in the post is a shot of the U.S. team huddled together on the ice, in their blue uniforms, a fan in the stands in the background waving an American flag.

Heise kept the caption on the post simple: "It's what we've all been waiting for." She was right. Some hockey fans had been waiting for this day — the day of the gold medal game in the Olympic women's hockey tournament — for two weeks. Heise could have been referring to those fans.

Or she could have been referring to the 25 years that she had waited for this moment to arrive, at times wondering if it would ever come. For all the awards Heise has won at Red Wing High School, at the University of Minnesota, wearing a Team USA uniform at three U18 Women's World Championships and at four Women's World Championships, the award she and her teammates earned Thursday is the one she's coveted the most.

Taylor Heise is an Olympic gold medalist. The 25-year-old Lake City native who played high school hockey at Red Wing, college hockey at Minnesota, and now plays pro hockey for the PWHL's Minnesota Frost, centered the Americans' second line on Thursday afternoon (Thursday evening in Italy) as the U.S.

beat rival Canada 2-1 in overtime to win the country's third gold medal in women's hockey, adding to the golds won in 1998 and 2018. Heise made history as students at Bluff View Elementary School in Lake City were gathered around a large screen to watch their hometown hero.

Three minutes, 40 seconds into overtime, legendary Canadian goalie Ann-Renee Desbiens made a glove save and held onto it, stopping play and setting up a faceoff to her left. With a draw coming in the offensive zone, U.S. coach John Wroblewski sent three fresh skaters onto the ice — forwards Heise and Tessa Janecke, and defender Megan Keller.

Canada won the faceoff, but Janecke pressured and forced a turnover in Canada's zone. Heise sent the puck back to Keller, who was being pressured and skated it back into the U.S. end. Keller left a short pass for Heise, who skated it below the U.S. goal line as Canada changed its skaters on the fly.

Heise saw what was happening and instead of circling the puck around her own net to head up ice with it, she spun and fired a pass to Keller at the far blue line. The rest was, indeed, history. Keller corralled the puck, and skated through the left circle as Canadian defender Claire Thompson positioned herself between Keller and the net.

Keller swiftly passed the puck around Thompson's far side to herself, then beat Desbiens with a five-hole backhand shot for the Golden Goal. "Taylor Heise, she gets the primary assist on that, from behind her own goal," analyst AJ Mleczko shouted on the USA Network broadcast. "Eyes in the back of her head to look up and see No.