Olympian Amber Glenn is a Magic: The Gathering superfan

On Feb. 8, Workforce USA’s Amber Glenn grew to become the sixth lady within the historical past of the Winter Olympics to land a triple axel in competitors, in the end serving to the USA to win gold within the workforce occasion. However do you know she’s additionally an enormous nerd who’s tremendous into Magic: The Gathering?

In a brief profile video that is aired with a few of the Winter Olympics protection, Glenn talked brazenly about her love of the buying and selling card sport — and he or she began it off by casually pulling an assortment of Magic playing cards out of her pockets, together with Pyroblast, Last Chance, and extra. Glenn defined that she left her “tremendous fancy” playing cards at dwelling as a result of they’re her “prized possessions” that she could not bear to lose.

“It’s a battle-based sport that has to do with totally different planes of existence and realms, and also you often play in opposition to a pair different folks,” she mentioned within the video (all however confirming that she partakes in four-player Commander). “I’m going to native sport shops and play. I do know it is nerdy, but it surely’s my interest and I get pleasure from it.”

Born in Plano, Texas, Glenn has spent most of her life on the ice and has talked brazenly in regards to the heavy psychological pressure that comes with collaborating within the sport’s highest ranges of competitors. For her, that is the place Magic is available in. In the identical video, Glenn speaks candidly in regards to the significance of getting passions outdoors of skating, particularly as she’s labored to prioritize her psychological well being.

“My skating and psychological well being journey are an ever-continuing path,” she mentioned. “Prioritizing my psychological well being outdoors of the game is essential — and never forgetting that I am a complete individual. I’ve hobbies. I’ve folks I like outdoors of the game.”

Glenn’s official Team USA profile lists Magic: The Gathering as a kind of hobbies, even noting that her canine Uki is known as after Ukkima, Stalking Shadow, a blue-black “whale wolf” that may’t be blocked. Whereas being interviewed by an area NBC affiliate in Texas earlier this month, Glenn mentioned her Uki is a younger Schipperke, a long-haired black canine breed with wolfish options initially from Belgium. (We’re keen to guess that Glenn has a Commander deck with Ukkima, Stalking Shadow and Cazur, Ruthless Stalker as companions — Amber, relase the decklist!)

A “Day in the Life” style video printed by Workforce USA in December additionally supplied a glance into her each day routine, which incorporates understanding, bodily remedy, and retail remedy at her native sport retailer. Glenn left with an armful of packing containers from Magic’s Avatar: The Final Airbender crossover set, together with no less than one scene field. Glenn’s teammate Alysa Liu additionally posted a video to her Instagram story in December during which Glenn launched Liu to the sport. In her first-ever Magic pack (presumably a Last Fantasy Collector Booster), Liu pulled borderless variations of each Y’shtola, Night’s Blessed and Clive, Ifrit’s Dominant. And in July 2025, Glenn unboxed a Tarkir: Dragonstorm bundle for NBC’s On Her Turf.

All of it provides as much as a portrait of an athlete who’s discovered the way to keep grounded on the very high of her sport. For Glenn, Magic isn’t a unusual apart or a little bit of Olympic coloration — it’s a part of how she protects her psychological well being, maintains steadiness, and reminds herself that she’s greater than her outcomes on the ice.

Glenn subsequent competes on Feb. 17 within the girls’s brief program. Within the meantime, we wish to assume that she’s shuffling up a deck and enjoying a little bit Magic.