Winter Olympics 2022 - Chinese women's hockey goalie honors heritage with dragon-themed gear

Hockey goalies are the rare athletes in team sports who can project personality through their choice of gear. That's no different at the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Goalie masks have become works of art through the years, displaying references to players' history and family as well as pop culture iconography. Goalie pads offer an even larger canvas for attention-grabbing personalization.

China goalie Zhou Jiaying — known as Kimberly Newell to North American fans, as all foreign-born players for China have been given Chinese names — is wearing personalized pads and blocker for the Beijing Olympics women's hockey tournament. She also has dragon-themed mask.

A post shared by Kimberly Newell (@kimberlyjnewell)

Newell, born in Vancouver, British Columbia, played NCAA hockey at Princeton before leaving in 2018 for the KRS Vanke Rays, a China-based team that played in the Canadian Women's Hockey League before moving to the Zhenskaya Hockey League, a women's league created by the KHL, a Moscow-based international league. She grabbed the attention of the hockey world when the International Ice Hockey Federation tweeted the image and it went viral before the tournament.

This entire fit is amazing. I absolutely love the pads<a href=«https://twitter.com/IIHFHockey?ref_src=» https: www.espn.com>@IIHFHockey

pic.twitter.com/FApEQRck50

Chris Joswiak knows that gear well, having worked with Newell in designing it for the 26-year-old goalie.

«Kim wanted to honor her Chinese heritage with the 'Gold Dragons in the Forbidden City,'» said Joswiak, a pro and college service manager for Brian's Custom Sports in Ontario, Canada.

Newell's mother is Chinese and moved to Canada to pursue a doctorate. Newell still has family in China.

Her main note to the