Gabriella Durante is 25 years old, she was born in Calgary, Canada but she will be the starting goalkeeper for Italy’s ice hockey team at the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympic Games. A path that starts from her Italian roots, with her grandparents originally from San Giovanni in Fiore, in the province of Cosenza, and passes through the last two seasons played with Real Torino and some international appearances with Ev Eagles Bolzano.
From Calabrian origins to the five-circle dream
«The fact of having an Italian passport is leading me to the dream of playing the Winter Olympics with the blue shirt», said Durante, who until Sunday is in Egna, Alto Adige, for the last training sessions with the national team before entering the Olympic Village in Milan. «When I completed the bureaucratic procedures I immediately found out how to do it in order to have this possibility: I really care about it and I’m happy with what I did».
Character, physique and pressure management
The blue goalie defines herself as “cold and clear during every game action”, explaining that “calm is fundamental for my role” and that, with her 180 centimeters tall, she considers herself “great” as a goalkeeper, trying to assert this characteristic between the posts. Durante also uses specific exercises to manage pressure, especially related to breathing.
«We will have a lot of pressure because we will be playing on the most important stage of all, and being at the Olympics is first of all an honor – he added -. The bulk of the work has now been done, now the last part is linked to the trust we will have towards ourselves. Let’s believe in it and let’s bring everything we have built in recent months to the track.”