Cammi Granato Biography

1971-

American hockey player

Cammi Granato was one of the best young women hockey players ever produced in the United States, and one of the most recognized. She was captain of Team USA's hockey team which won Olympic Gold in 1998. Playing center, Granato used her head on the ice and had great scoring ability.

Granato was born on March 24, 1971, in Maywood, Illinois, to Don and Natalie Granato. Her father was a beer distributor who played amateur hockey. Granato had four brothers and one sister. One brother, Tony, played on several teams in the National Hockey League, and went on to coach the Colorado Avalanche. Another brother, Don, played in the minor leagues. As a child, the second youngest of six, all four of her brothers played hockey. While her parents tried to get her interested in figure skating, she wanted to play hockey. Her brothers tried to make her play goal, but she was determined to become a skater.

Granato began playing hockey when she was five, but her parents did not become supportive until they saw how serious she was. Granato played club hockey from ages five to sixteen on a boys' team, the Downers Grove Huskies. Granato encountered some problems with other teams targeting her for injury and parents not wanting their sons to play against her, especially as she got older. She was once deliberately concussed by a player in a game, and suffered a shoulder injury another time. By the time, she reached her full height, she was only 5'7" and 141 lbs. Granato stopped playing for the team during her junior and senior years in high school because of social pressures and fear of injury as the boys became bigger than her.

While hockey was her favorite sport, Granato also played many others. She played on a boys' baseball team, and at the high school level she had success on the girls' basketball and soccer teams. Granato was also a gifted handball player, who received the national recognition, but hockey was her focus.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Address: c/o USA Hockey, Inc., 1715 Bob Johnson Rd., Colorado Springs, CO 80906.