Olympic Women’s Hockey Rivals Marry

The captain of Team USA’s Women’s Hockey team, Meghan Duggan, 31, has married her longtime rival, Team Canada’s Gillian Apps, 34. The ceremony took place at the William Allen Farm in Maine, in Pownal. The wedding was announced publicly on Tuesday.

The two had squared off across the ice, including a contest for two gold medals, and seven finals in world championship competition.

In the Olympic competitions, which took place in 2010 and 2014, Canada took the gold. Apps won gold in 2006, as well. After her retirement, Duggan won a gold in 2018’s Winter Olympics.

As Team USA said in a statement, “The U.S.-Canada ice hockey rivalry is one of the most storied in team sports, with the two nations competing for every gold medal since the women’s world championship began in 1990.”

The Team went on to say, however, “True love overcomes even the largest of rivalries. Just ask Meghan Duggan.”

Aside from their Olympic pursuits, Apps has worked at Boston College as an assistant coach with the women’s hockey program. Duggan played on the Boston Pride roster in 2016 and 2017.

According to Pink News, “The newlyweds aren’t the only North American lesbian sporting couple to hit the headlines this year, with US international footballer Megan Rapinoe and four-time Olympic gold medallist Sue Bird—who came out in 2017—becoming the first same-sex couple to feature on the cover of ESPN’s body issue in June.”

This is not the first pairing of American and Canadian Women’s players. In 2017, Caroline Ouellette and Julie Chu announced the birth of their newborn to the Internet.

Twitter user @jeannakadlec tweeted, “THE CAPTAINS OF THE US AND CANADIAN WOMENS HOCKEY TEAMS GOT MARRIED THIS IS BASICALLY WORLD PEACE.”