Palos Heights Hockey Player Wins Olympic Gold

CHICAGO (CBS) --  It may be the best hockey game you never saw.

The underdog U.S. women's hockey team defeated the Canadians in the gold-medal game well after 1 a.m. Thursday here in a dramatic shootout.

A key member of that team is from our area: Kendall Coyne of Palos Heights. CBS 2 went back to the ice rink where she grew up.

No one is skating at the Arctic Ice Arena in Orland Park now. The locker room is dark and empty.

There's one lonely puck on the ice. But the pride level is through the roof.

"I was ecstatic, like everybody else, because of Kendall," Christopher Cimoch says.

"I just want to congratulate her and her family," Frank Mankovitch adds.

They've been at Arctic Ice for more than 20 years each. They've seen Coyne grow up from a little girl to an Olympic gold medalist.

"(She has a) great personality, a hard worker, she never quit," Cimoch says. "She is fast for 5'2", 125 lbs. She can scoot."

The rink hosted a fundraiser for the Coyne family to help with travel to Pyeongchang.

"We had a lot of people here," Mankovitch says. "It was a packed house."

"Never met a nicer family or group of people in my life," Cimoch says.

Kendall held a hockey camp for girls at the rink. Cimock saw her there.

"I got to give her a hug and tell her how proud I was of her," Mock says.