The 37-year-old Canadian, who is also in pursuit of a record eighth gold medal at this week’s Ice Hockey Women’s World Championships in Kamloops, told insidethegames: “I would definitely like to play up to the 2018 Winter Olympics if I can.

“I will take it year by year and evaluate my level of performance.” 

Wickenheiser, who first played for Canada as a 15-year-old in the 1994 World Championships, and earned the first of her five Olympic medals - a silver - in the inaugural women’s ice hockey tournament at the Nagano Games of 1998, is currently joint fifth in the list of multiple Olympic champions in team events.

She shares that placing with two other women - Birgit Fisher of Germany, who won four golds and a silver in K4 canoeing from 1980 to 2004 - and Canadian team mate Jayna Hefford, whose Olympic and World Championship record matches hers.

Hefford retired after the Sochi 2014 Games while Hungarian fencer Aladar Gerevich, who contributed to six team sabre titles from 1932 to 1960, is top of the list.

His team-mate Pal Kovacs is second in the list with five golds over the same period, a record shared with West Germany’s Reiner Klimke who won five golds in the equestrian team dressage between 1964 and 1988.

In fourth place is West Germany’s Hans Gunter Winkler, who won four golds and a silver in equestrian team jumping between 1956 and 1976.

Should Wickenheiser succeed in her golden ambition in South Korea, she would move to second on the overall list behind Gerevich.

Wickenheiser, who also represented Canada in softball at the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney, was elected to the International Olympic Committee’s Athletes’ Commission in 2014.

In Kamloops she will seek to help Canada regain the title on home territory that has been won on the last two occasions - in 2013 and 2015 - by the United States.

“It’s going to be highly competitive,” she said.

“We are the defending Olympic champions and the United States are the defending champions, and it’s always a tight match between us.

"We can also expect a strong challenge from some of the countries who have traditionally won medals at the Championships – Sweden, Russia, Switzerland and Finland.”

On the eve of the World Championships, Wickenheiser has spoken exclusively to insidethegames along with multiple Olympic medallist and world champion Angela Ruggiero of the United States and Rene Fasel, President of the IIHF.

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The World Championships in Kamloops will begin tomorrow and will run until April 4.