University of Minnesota Athletics
Five Minutes with Olivia Knowles
10/25/2017 12:00:00 AM | Women's Hockey
MINNEAPOLIS - Gophers freshman defense Olivia Knowles caught up with the voice of Gopher Women's Hockey Dan Hamann last weekend. Listen as Knowles reflects on playing many sports growing up, her hometown of Campbell River, B.C., and how she chose the University of Minnesota.
Listen to Olivia Knowles' pregame interview with Dan Hamann.
Dan Hamann: Give us a little background on Campbell River and talk about your hometown. Where can we find it and what's it like?
Olivia Knowles: Campbell River is on the west coast of British Columbia up in Canada. It's an island, about an hour and forty-five minute ferry ride to the mainland, and then an hour and a half drive to my actual hometown. The island is one of the most beautiful places in the world, that's a promise. I live by the ocean, I live by a sandy beach, and it's incredible.
DH: So getting around is not necessarily one of the easier things to do, you mentioned the ferry ride. I would imagine that you've taken that ferry ride fairly regularly, haven't you?
OK: Yeah, growing up, we would always have tournaments in Vancouver, and we'd have to travel a lot for hockey and gymnastics and all the other sports I did. We're definitely kind of secluded on the island, but it's worth it with how pretty it is and how homey it is.
DH: You mentioned gymnastics, a sport you competed in, I'm not stereotyping here but you don't seem like a gymnastics type, so how did you get started?
OK: I was just really energetic and my mom said the main reason they put me in it is because one, I loved to climb on everything and two, it was one of the only sports that would take kids for more than forty-five minutes to an hour, and just to get me out of the house. Being active was something they really needed so I could sleep at night and waste a bit of energy. I did gymnastics since I was about two years old all the way until I was about twelve. It was my first sport, but by twelve I started growing and typically gymnasts are compact people, very small and powerful, and then I started growing. I really liked hockey too, so I made the choice to quit, but I miss it a lot.
DH: That's just one of the many sports that, in your bio, you competed in. Are these sports you actually competed in? I'll just go through the list here on top of hockey and gymnastics. Soccer, softball, track and field, swimming, basketball, volleyball, cross country, skiing, snowboarding, surfing and tennis. Competitively in all of those?
OK: A lot of them are casual, too. Like I said, I'm a pretty energetic person so anything just to get me outside and being active. I really enjoyed it. Some of those sports, they're not even my favorite sports, but as I played them, I knew what I liked and found out the things I didn't like as much, but just cross-training and being able to be agile and be quick I think really helped my in hockey. I think especially in gymnastics, being powerful and being able to be balanced and the work ethic that all these sports have taught me, I think they really shaped how I am today.
DH: You mentioned the cross-training, I would imagine a lot of those skills you picked up from a lot of those sports are very transferrable to hockey. I could even see where surfing, as far as balance would be a big thing there too, wouldn't you agree?
OK: Yeah, of course. Almost every sport, I've been able to apply in hockey and I know that sounds weird, but they're definitely transferrable.
DH: You still play a lot of these sports, I would imagine, too in your spare time, is that right?
OK: Yeah, even though we're pretty busy and I'm not able to do them as much as I would like, my senior year of high school, I played in a walleyball league, which is very casual at the Rec Center in Penticton. It's pretty much a game of keep the balloon up in a room, it's volleyball in a space with four walls, it's pretty fun though.
DH: You also competed with the U18 team in Canada, you got to know a few Gophers there I would imagine, there a future Gopher, Amy Potomak, and in school you also played with Alex Gulstene at OHA, talk about both those experiences.
OK: Yeah, growing up I always competed against Amy. We were two girls who played boys spring hockey, and we always played against each other. Our teams were big rivals, so we started off as not friends, but we've grown closer as we played international and on team BC together and that sort of thing, so we're really, really good friends. Alex and I have also played together for quite some time, and it was awesome having her on the back end last year and the year before that, good support systems.
DH: Which one of these sports do you miss the most? In your spare time, if you could choose one, which one would you choose and why?
OK: I really like volleyball and gymnastics. I know I'm not the ideal body type for gymnastics, but it was such a freeing sport. I'm a big risk-taker, and I love heights and stuff so gymnastics was super fun. Also, volleyball, just the whole strategy of the game I really enjoy.
DH: How about the time you've spent so far with this team and what have you enjoyed most about it?
OK: I think just the team itself, I really love all the girls. They're super welcoming and supportive. I don't think I've ever played on a team that's had such a clear mindset on their values and their goals, so I think just being around like-minded people who are so kind and gracious, I think that's one of the best parts of being here.
DH: In the recruiting process, why Minnesota? What was so appealing for you?
OK: Honestly, I think it's just such a well-rounded place, athletics-wise, academically, socially, the people here, I just fell in love with it as soon as I saw it when I was younger. It's kind of always been in the back of my mind in the recruiting process that this is such an incredible place, so I know when I was looking at other schools, I would always look back and compare it to Minnesota and in that process I just realized that if I'm always comparing them to the best, which in my opinion this is the best, then I should be at the best, at whatever I love.
DH: Geography must have played a little part because being from British Columbia, the closest school you had to the east was Minnesota.
OK: Yeah for my parents, I moved away when I was fifteen years old to pursue hockey, so for them, distance did play a factor, but it wasn't as huge since we didn't see each other as much as a normal family probably would have. As far as hockey schools go, this is as close as you get, really.
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