It was only fitting Team USA would be led out of the Milano Cortina Games by this pair.
Hilary Knight and Evan Bates will carry the United States flag at the closing ceremony Sunday, it was announced on Friday.
Knight is coming off a memorable Olympics on and off the ice.

On Wednesday, she got down on one knee and proposed to girlfriend and American speed skater Brittany Bowe. She revealed the big event on Instagram, sharing a video of her giving Bowe a silver band.
“Olympics brought us together. This one made us forever,” the 36-year-old wrote for the caption.
By Thursday, Knight had won a gold medal as the U.S. women’s hockey team defeated Canada, 2-1, in an overtime thriller.
She tallied the game-tying goal with nearly two minutes left in regulation as Team USA emptied its net.
Megan Keller had the last laugh and netted the overtime winner that sent the Americans into hysterics over winning their first gold in eight years.
The goal, her 15th in her Olympic career, is the most of any U.S. women’s hockey player.
It capped off her fifth and final Winter Olympics. The victory marks as her second gold medal (2018) of her five total Olympic medals. She also holds three silvers (2010, 2014, 2022).
2026 WINTER OLYMPICS
Bates, meanwhile, will get one more moment in the Milan limelight himself.
The ice dancer, along with his wife and on-ice partner Madison Chock, won silver in a controversial Olympic finish after a French judge gave a significantly higher score to the gold medal-winning French duo of Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron, which made Bates and Chock narrowly miss first place.

The silver marked Bates and Chock’s third Olympic medal. They’ve won two golds in the figure skating team event, including in Milan.
The pair started competing together as friends in 2011 and later married in 2024.


