Meghan Duggan chased an Olympic gold her entire hockey career. In her final shot, she achieved her goal.

In the latest episode of the Five Rings To Rule Them All podcast, the seven-time world champion talks about her quest for Olympic gold, but also her push for equal treatment for female athletes in hockey.

While coming out personally and publicly living her true life, Duggan found that the personal bonds people make — family, romance, friendship — can get past any divisions that may pop up, whether it be on or off the ice. Being married to a former “rival” on the ice, Gillian Apps who played for Canada, has taught her a lot about love.

“Love is going to trump all,” she said. “That’s your professional life, sports, business, whatever it is. My family will always be the most important thing to me. It was difficult, one of us winning and one of us losing in that 2014 gold medal game. But I think getting through that showed we can get through anything.”

Duggan offered some advice to other couples facing off in the Olympics or other elite-level matches, like softball’s Amanda Chidester and Anissa Urtez. Every couple could probably learn from her:

“For us it was probably allowing each other, certainly after that gold medal game in Sochi, allowing each other the space that we needed to process that grand of a moment in the ways we needed to,” Duggan said. “We didn’t make it about our relationship, it was about our teams and giving each other space to do what we needed to do, and to know our love was strong enough to regroup on the other side of it all.”

Olympic champion… and relationship-consultant. Now looking back at her playing career, and ahead to “retirement,” she reflected on her most important accomplishments, plus her admiration for fellow trailblazer Billie Jean King and the work of the Women’s Sports Foundation.

“The Women’s Sports Foundation is my favorite topic to talk about and a group I love and admire and respect and am honored to be a part of.”

You can listen to the conversation with Olympic champion Meghan Duggan on the Megaphone player, or by visiting Spotify for an easy browser player. Five Rings To Rule Them All is also available on Google Podcasts, Apple podcasts and many more platforms. Just search for Outsports wherever you get your podcast.

And be sure to follow Five Rings To Rule Them All on Twitter.

You can follow Meghan Duggan on Instagram or on Twitter @mduggan10. You can find Women’s Sports Foundation on Instagram and on Twitter.

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