Now nearing shouting distance from the 2026 Olympic Winter Games, a countdown that ticked below 80 days on Nov. 17, AJ Mleczko’s attention will likely start to narrow on one of the great honors of her career – covering the Games from the broadcast booth.

This coming February, the Nantucket-born, New England-raised Harvard alum – who made history with Team USA after winning Olympic gold in 1998 at the Nagano Games – will take on her eighth, yes, eighth Games as a broadcaster for NBC. 

Mleczko has covered both Summer and Winter Games over the years, and this time in Milan Cortina, will be reuniting with play-by-play veteran Kenny Albert in the booth, for women’s games in Italy. 

“It’s an incredible honor,” says Mleczko. “For NBC to continue to trust me with this job means a tremendous amount. To be able to be there and watch it firsthand, to see players’ practices, talk to them before and after, I don’t take for granted. Being the one with a microphone in front of me to share the stories with everyone watching back home is a tremendous honor.”

Like the players they’re covering, broadcasters are an integral part of aiming to present the very best video production in the world. Olympic coverage broadcasts are extraordinary feats of programming supported by enormous budgets, wildly passionate fanbases and audience viewership in the billions that exponentially amps up … well, everything. 

Simply, an Olympics gig is a pinnacle of sports broadcasting.

And Mleczko is quick to thank those who presented her with the original opportunity after her own successful playing career came to a close after winning two Olympic medals.

“It started with Molly Solomon and now it’s Becky Chatman and their whole crew,” she says. “They took a chance on me. Sam Flood, too. They saw me as someone with potential and they gave me a shot. And I am so grateful to NBC and the Olympics that they continue to let me do that. They were able to give me that opportunity to sink or swim. And I’ve been able to swim for the most part.”

Mleczko, who in addition to winning gold in ‘98, earned a silver medal with Team USA at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games, bringing her to double-digits for playing in or covering the Games.

“I really love being a part of any Olympics, just feeling the Olympics and the energy and the excitement,” says Mleczko, who throughout the NHL season serves as an in-game analyst for ESPN games.

Working with Albert, too, sets up as a return to the familiar. 

“We’ve worked since Torino together,” Mleczko says of her partner in the Olympic booth dating back to 2006. “Sidenote, my first broadcast partner was Doc Emery and my second was Kenny Albert. How lucky am I? Kenny’s going to do all the women’s and men’s games, so he’s going to be a busy guy. It’s been a couple years since I’ve been able to work with him, so that’s one thing I’m really looking forward to.”

While Mleczko admits she can’t be sure what in the world she would be doing these days if this was not her semi-surprise of a career, now nearly two decades on, it has worked out pretty well.

“I think initially it was a sharp learning curve, and then it’s more chipping away at it,” she says. “Sometimes you’re working with different styles, different voices in your ear or different camera cuts. You do sort of adjust. It’s live TV so you have to roll with it. A game may not go the way you plan it out, but none of that stresses me out anymore. And I think that’s part of my maturity and experience. But you get to the point, too, and we joke around about this, that we are in the entertainment business.”

Mleczko, who in her own Olympic career went 1-1 in the first two rounds of Team USA vs. Canada, gold-medal finals that have to be considered largely responsible for growing the women’s game in this country, is also looking forward to the hockey. Even before roster selections, she was ready with an analyst’s perspective. 

“One thing that is going to be interesting is a big picture item,” says Mleczko. “This is the first time North American teams [Team USA and Canada] are not centralizing because of the PWHL and because the NCAA is so strong. These athletes usually would already be together. That gave them a huge advantage over European countries. Players know each other very well, and they’re also highly skilled, but when you’re together from August to February versus not, I guess I’m curious about how different it will be.”

Mleczko is also curious about whether the positively altered landscape might benefit countries such as Sweden, the only other nation to win higher than a bronze medal in the women’s game, and Finland, which has won four bronze medals in the seven women’s tournaments.

“Does that bring them up to competing level for the US and Canada?” she says. “There are other countries that want to stand in the podium. Based on the Four Nations on the men’s side and just history on the women’s side, the U.S. and Canada, the rivalry is epic. A USA-Sweden final would be great. Yes, I still want the U.S. to win the gold, of course, but it would be nice to have more challenges for the semifinal games for sure.”

As the women’s game has evolved and the opportunities have become more plentiful in the NCAA and PWHL, those opportunities create new avenues for more players to compete at higher levels, develop their own games and challenge for an Olympic roster spot. The more opportunities across the board, the more chances new players have to work on their games in ways that were impossible only a matter of years ago.

“With the sheer number of teams, that, in turn, pushes the international teams up,” says Mleczko. “For players, you’re working a little bit harder. You’re lifting a little bit more in the summer. You’re skating and working on skills. These athletes are much fitter. Because of the depth, they have the motivation to work as hard as they can to be vying for a spot on the Olympic team.”

Both the women’s and men’s games have evolved in the years since Mleczko has played, but few have enjoyed so many angles from which to view that progress. Mleczko, a mom of four, has coached all of her kids, one of whom now plays hockey at Boston College, in addition to her consistent NHL work (roughly 40 games this season for ESPN) and Olympics stints. 

“When you look out at the women’s game now versus 25 years ago, it’s amazing how fast it is,” she says. “I love the physicality that has come into the women’s game. Yes, we were physical, but they’re allowing it a little bit more.”

Making her professional return to Italy, Mleczko, who was, as she says, “very pregnant” at the time of the Torino Games, is looking forward to all that the host country offers this time around.

“So, it’s obviously a different city but fun to go back there, and I have fond memories of the tiramisu and gelato,” Mleczko says. “I was due in April with my daughter, who is playing at Boston College now, so now, maybe I get to sample the Italian wine. And the pasta and the pizza and everything.”

Once in the booth, though, there is a job to do and broadcasters 100% respect their role, treating it almost as a contract between the game and the audience. 

“There is no ‘we’ or ‘us,’” says Mleczko of in-game analysis of Team USA. “And I take pride in the fact that I think I’ve done that very well. I played for the United States and I bleed, red, white and blue. But in the game, I can separate myself. I didn’t find that hard even in Torino. As a national broadcaster and in these Olympics, I know that it’s pretty important to let the game tell the story.”

Mleczko has now been part of telling those stories for a whole lot longer than she might have expected while growing up in New England, well before Olympic women’s hockey was even “a thing,” or playing for Team USA or even sitting in the booth in Torino nearly 20 years ago. Mleczko, as a fixture in the Olympic booth, can also be viewed as part of the evolution of the women’s game.

“I think at some point when I’m done, I will appreciate it more, I think,” she says. “Especially because there will be women who will come through that are much better than me. I celebrate that. I’m hopeful for that. How the industry has changed, and how so many more women are involved, is pretty amazing to have been a part of. I hope there will be people who come through that we’ve been able to open a little bit and that will never close again.”