Shutter speed: 1/2500th of a second. Aperture: F3.2. ISO: 2500. Color temperature setting: 5500k. The allotted time to capture the moment: a fraction of a second.
The result: the timeless photo of Jack Hughes following his golden goal.
The photographer: Elsa Garrison.
At her core, Garrison is a storyteller. As a photographer, her work differs from that of a journalist or writer. In her world, there is no such thing as a first or second draft or 15-minute interview. She has mere seconds to capture moments that her subjects call indescribable. Behind her camera lens, she hones in on the raw emotions of the moment, making sure the saying "a picture is worth a thousand words" holds true.
“I feel like my job as a photographer is capturing fractions of a second in time that are moments that are going to be talked and written about that day and beyond,” Garrison told The Hockey News. “That is how I approach everything. Even for a regular-season game here at Prudential Center, I am recording moments in time. You don't know how big those moments are going to be, but you still have to go after them the same.”
At the time, Garrison had no idea that one of her photos from Feb. 22, taken at the conclusion of the USA's win over Canada in the gold medal game in the 2026 Winter Olympics, would become historic.
The night before the gold medal game, Jack Hughes went to bed around 11:30 p.m. Sharing a dorm-style room within the Olympic Village with his older brother Quinn Hughes, Jack could hear his brother restlessly toss and turn for the next several hours in his twin bed.
“At two in the morning, (Quinn) said, ‘What are you thinking about?’ I said I am just thinking about my game winner tomorrow night,” Jack shared on The Pat McAfee Show. “I asked what about you? He said, ‘Same,’ and that was it. We went to bed after that.”
For the men playing in the tournament, pressure mounted with each win, culminating in the highly anticipated gold medal game against their biggest rival. It was by happenstance that the game would be played 46 years to the day of the 1980 Miracle on Ice, and the last time the men’s USA hockey team secured a gold medal.
An hour outside the Olympic village, Garrison slept well in a king-sized bed because, unlike the Olympians, the pressure she experienced lessened with each passing day of the tournament as her routine in Italy solidified. She closed her eyes, knowing she wouldn’t have a lot to pack up in the morning after working the bronze medal game, and leaving all her equipment at the rink, secured in a locker.
On game day, Hughes and his teammates boarded the bus at 11:00 a.m. for their 20-minute drive to the rink to play the biggest game of their lives. Already inside was Garrison, whose journey included a fifteen-minute walk, an hour-long train ride, and a quick ride on the trolley.
“We got there no later than 10:30 a.m.,” she recalled. “It was quiet. They were still working on the ice and cleaning the glass. I set up and walked around, envisioning what I needed to get from this game, and where the best place was to do that.”
While Hughes had his linemates of Tage Thompson and Dylan Larkin, Garrison was part of her own trio with fellow photographers Bruce Bennett and Greg Shamus, who were also ice level.
“Bennett was near the Team USA bench, and Shamus was on the other end,” Garrison explained. “Bennett and I talked before the game, and he said, ‘This is where we saw that we might have a weakness in coverage.’ It was on the penalty box side, so he suggested I find a spot over there.”
Garrison and her fellow photographers had a plan in place well before the fans started piling into Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena. Knowing her responsibilities for the afternoon game, she took a moment to go through her own quiet pregame routine as the USA’s head coach, Mike Sullivan, preached “American Swagger” to the hockey players within his locker room.
“I felt myself getting locked in a little bit,” she said. “You go out there, take a deep breath, and just take in the cold of the rink, and it was a pretty cold rink, especially at the beginning of the tournament.”
Part of that routine involved pulling out a photo of her mentor, Steve Kohls, who passed away in November 2025.
“I sat there and took a few deep breaths, and then I took out his picture,” Garrison recalled. “I took a photo class in ninth grade, and I thought, oh, this is kind of cool. Then, in my sophomore year, my high school started a program that paired students interested in certain fields with professionals in the community. I was paired up with a newspaper photographer, and I shot mostly sports at night because I was in school all day. This guy, Steve Kohls, introduced me to a career I didn't know was possible. I didn't know that this could be done for a living.”
On the day of the gold medal game, Garrison snapped a photo on her phone holding the photo of Kohls with the arena in the background.
Photo Credit: Elsa Garrison“I carried the photo in the backpack that I had,” she said. “Most days, I would look at it every day, but I didn't always take a picture. I thought this was kind of a big game, and I am going to take a picture. I then sent it to his daughter, and said I was thinking about her dad.”
Meanwhile, through the winding tunnels, some of Hughes' teammates were on the phone with former American hockey player and Olympian Chris Chelios for a pregame conversation.
As fans began to trickle into the arena, Garrison took mental notes, noticing those decked out in their countries' attire and the homemade signs awaiting the players for warmups. She also spotted which section the families were in, first noticing Keith Tkachuk before finding Jack Hughes’ parents, Jim and Ellen.
“I thought, okay, now I know where I am going at the end of the game, depending on how this goes,” she said. “Even if it ended in regulation, it was still going to be the same plan because once they get their flags, they are going to skate around before the medal ceremony. They are going to go to where their loved ones are.”
Garrison was located near the penalty box when overtime began. She was in no position to capture a potential Canada game-winning goal, but would be able to shoot their bench’s initial reaction before they jumped onto the ice. If the USA won, she was in a prime position to capture the shot, follow-through, and the initial reaction to scoring the golden goal.
Within the first two minutes of overtime, Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Zach Werenski had possession of the puck in the offensive zone.
“United States with numbers. Across it comes. Jack Hughes wins it! The golden goal for the United States! For the first time since the 1980 Miracle, the United States takes the gold,” NBC play-by-play announcer Kenny Albert exclaimed.
Within seconds, Garrison snapped roughly 15 photos of Hughes scoring on Canadian goaltender Jordan Binnington.
The Devils’ forward has publicly stated that he initially wasn’t sure the puck went into the net. It was not until he saw Larkin sprinting on the ice towards his teammates to celebrate that he knew he scored the golden goal.
Larkin was not the only one sprinting in that moment.
As fractions of a second ticked by and the celebration grew, Garrison sprinted from her spot by the penalty box to shoot at Team USA’s bench before her final dash to capture the emotions between the players and their families.
It was there, in that moment, that she captured a photo that will forever be part of hockey and Olympic history.
Hughes could not remember exactly what he was looking at in that moment, but Garrison will always remember where she was, sharing that he was looking toward Jim and Ellen Hughes.
“You couldn't have written it better,” Garrison said, looking at her photo.
Photo Credit: New Jersey Devils As the celebrations carried on inside the arena, Garrison knew her job wasn’t done. Before the medal ceremony began, she sent that photo, among others, to her boss.
“I got this picture into an editor's hands within a minute,” she said. “This picture was out before they even got their medals. I kind of wonder if this picture didn't come out until after the medal ceremony, if it would have had the impact.”
Initially, Garrison did not realize what that impact would look like. Amongst the chaos, her initial reaction was that Devils’ team photographer, Andrew Maclean, would be happy with what she had captured. Little did she know, she would be on her own media tour after the Olympics, conducting interviews with The Athletic, CBS News, and more.
Hughes returned to the USA a hero. When he finally stepped back into Prudential Center as an Olympic champion, he was met by congratulations and fist bumps.
So was Garrison.
Sitting in the media room within Prudential Center for this interview, photographers and videographers alike could not help but stop and congratulate her on her success.
For millions across the USA, they will always recall where they were and who they were with when Hughes scored the golden goal. For Garrison, it was simply another day at the office. One that ended with the image that will be remembered forever.
The American flag draped over the winning goal scorer’s shoulders. A single fist in the air. A bloody, chipped-tooth smile that endeared a nation, embodying the image of a hockey player.
“I knew I did my job that day,” Garrison said. “I felt very confident in that. I thought I can be proud of myself today.”
A sentiment that she shares with Hughes.
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