Olympic figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi rides Expedition Everest at Disney's Animal Kingdom with her husband, Carolina Hurricanes hockey player Bret Hedican, at Lake Buena Vista, Fla., on Jan. 24, 2007
Kristi Yamaguchi returned home with more than just a gold medal after the 1992 Winter Games in Albertville, France. She had also met her future husband, U.S. hockey player Bret Hedican, at the Games. However, the pair didn’t start dating until their paths crossed again at the opening of Vancouver’s ice-hockey arena in 1995.
(PHOTOS: Athletes Prepare for the 2012 Olympic Games)
Perhaps their first meeting was fruitless because of false assumptions.
“He was clean-cut and soft-spoken,” Yamaguchi told People after they became engaged on Christmas Eve in 1998. “Figure skaters have awful perceptions of hockey players, and I thought, This guy’s a little different.”
Their pair married in 2000 and have two daughters.