Lisa Brown-Miller, a member of the first Olympic champion women’s hockey team, died at age 58 on May 2, according to USA Hockey.
Brown-Miller was one of three Americans to play at both the first world championship for women’s hockey in 1990 and the first Olympic women’s hockey tournament in 1998. The others were fellow forward Cammi Granato and defender Sue Merz.
“We (the 1998 gold medalists) were pioneers, but we didn’t really know it,” Brown-Miller said in 2010, according to the Grand Rapids Press in her native Michigan. “We were in Japan, a world away, wide-eyed, and everything was very, very different. People were telling us that, at home, we were the talk of the Olympics, but it was hard for us to believe. Nobody had cared about us before. Nobody had ever paid attention.”
Brown-Miller resigned as Princeton’s head coach to pursue the 1998 Olympics. She made the team as its oldest (31) and shortest (5 feet, 1 inch) player.
''I’ve never looked at myself as having disadvantages,’' she said in 1998, according to The New York Times. ''I think, being smaller, I’ve usually been faster than the bigger girls, and my tenacity and aggressiveness have also been a plus.’”
She was pregnant during those Olympics, though she didn’t know it at the time. Brown-Miller had her first child, son Alex, in August 1998.
She covered the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics as a commentator for NBC Sports.
“Grateful to call Brownie a teammate and a friend,” fellow 1998 Olympic gold medalist A.J. Mleczko posted on social media. “Smallest player on the team with the biggest heart. Fierce & loyal. Hard to believe she is gone but her legacy will live on forever.”
