Ice Hockey: Olympic Ice Queen Wickenheiser Retires From Hockey

MONTREAL, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th Jan, 2017 ) - Four-time Olympic gold medal winner Hayley Wickenheiser has retired from ice hockey after a 23-year international career that broke down gender barriers for women in the sport.

Wickenheiser overcome her fair share of obstacles while trying to carve her own path into the male-dominated world of hockey. "Dear Canada. It has been the great honour of my life to play for you.

Time to hang em up!! Thank you!" the 38-year-old Wickenheiser wrote Friday on her Twitter account. Canada's all-time leading female scorer played 23 years on the Canadian women's national team and she spent over a decade as the dominant female player in the world.

In 2003, she took time off from the national team to join HC Salamat of Finland's third division men's league, becoming the first female forward to play full-time in a men's professional league.

Wickenheiser is one of just five Olympians all-time to win gold medals at four straight Winter Games. "The thing I am most proud of if I look back to the gold medal games in the Olympics, I don't think I played a bad game in those five games. I rose to the occasion a lot," she told Canadian sports broadcaster Sportsnet.