Team USA Hockey Goalie Ava McNaughton Turns Her Vision Board To Reality

Sochi 2010. The women’s ice hockey gold medal game. Crowds roaring. The moment impossibly big.

You’re sitting on the couch with your family, eyes locked on the screen, and you say it — half dreaming, half daring: “That’s going to be me one day.”

There’s power in saying it out loud. In visualizing what feels unreachable. In letting yourself dream Olympic-sized dreams.

It’s easy to be inspired by athletes competing on the world’s biggest stage. But the real magic is what happens after, when you walk away not just impressed, but bold enough to imagine yourself there one day too.

Just like Team USA Hockey Goalie Ava McNaughton.

From the Beginning

McNaughton grew up watching the Olympics with her family. The earliest she remembers was watching the 2010 Games in Sochi. Seeing the female athletes on the screen was such an inspiration back then. 

By the time PyeongChang rolled around, McNaughton knew she wanted to be there in 2026. She put pen to paper and visualized the goal.

“During 8th grade during my recruiting process, I had a vision board going on the wall at that point, so it was post-it notes that I was drawing on and writing things on,” McNaughton says. “At the top was a big note card with the Olympic rings on in 2026. It's always the pinnacle of it all for me.”

In just two weeks time, McNaughton will don the Team USA jersey for the first time on Olympic ice, accomplishing a goal she’s had on her mind (and vision board) for the past eight years. 

More than Hockey

And she’s taking the mindset of a champion to the Olympic stage with her. 

For McNaughton, she acknowledges it is easy to let the media or negative thoughts control your thoughts. It’s in those high pressure situations that she finds it helpful to remember her child-like love for the sport. 

“I've started to write things on my sticks that ground me in why I'm playing the game and what it's supposed to feel like,” says McNaughton.

“At the end of the day, if we lose a hockey game, it's not the end of the world. On my stick, it says, you're more than a hockey game.” 

Remembering her identity is not rooted in her performance on the ice allows McNaughton to play free and for the love of the sport. 

And when she faces challenges mid-game? She resets and refocuses. 

“The monotony of the routine is kind of what helps me just kind of stay level-headed and not worry too much about it. And I try to do the same kind of things I do in the game as I do in practice, so that I practice the mental part of it in practice as well.”

Beyond the Ice

For Ava, being more than a hockey player means the lessons she’s learned in the crease don’t stop at the rink.

“There are so many details…honing in on the foundations, the physical aspects, your craft on the ice…all those little things coming together to create something so big,” she says. “And I think that carries over into everything.”

Goaltending taught her to respect the margins.

“It’s the inches. The centimeters,” Ava explains. “Dialing in those tiny measurements adds up to a lot. It’s made me appreciate the details so much more.”

And that’s where her story comes full circle.

Because dreams don’t become real in one moment. They’re built quietly, deliberately, in the details no one sees. A Post-it on a wall. A phrase written on a stick. A routine practiced long before iss needed.

At the end of the day, McNaughton reminds us all to dream big and remember why we do it.

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