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We turn to Day 6, which is going to be a big one. Canada looks poised to break out with multiple medals, while both of our hockey teams are in action (including the first game for the men) and Rachel Homan begins her quest for curling redemption.
Our daily viewing guide takes you through all that, plus some key international angles to follow.
Thursday is a huge day for Canada
With four medals (one silver and three bronze) through five full days of competition, I wouldn’t say that Canada is off to a slow start. The team is more or less right where it should be in terms of total medals. But I get it if Canadians are getting a little antsy for the first gold and/or one of those big days where our athletes pile up several pieces of hardware.
Well, Thursday could be that day.
Three of Canada’s best athletes — short track speed skater Will Dandjinou, moguls skier Mikaël Kingsbury and snowboard cross rider Éliot Grondin — are favoured to win gold. Short track star Courtney Sarault is a top medal contender, long tracker Isabelle Weidemann is a serious threat, and some other Canadians are poised to make a run at the podium too.
Plus, Canada’s NHL stars return to the Olympics for the first time in a dozen years, the Canadian women’s hockey team closes out group play, and women’s curling favourite Rachel Homan opens her event.
Yeah, there’s a lot going on. So here’s a guide to what Canadian fans should watch, in chronological order:
Women’s curling: Canada vs. Denmark at 3:05 a.m. ET
Rachel Homan’s Canadian team is the clear favourite to win gold after capturing back-to-back world championships and five of the 10 Grand Slam titles over the last two seasons. But the Olympics have been a house of horrors for Homan, who went 4-5 and missed the four-team playoffs in 2018 as the reigning women’s world champ and then failed to advance again in 2022 with John Morris in mixed doubles.
Canada’s main rival is Switzerland, skipped by 46-year-old Silvana Tirinzoni. She won four straight world titles from 2019 to 2023 before losing to Homan in the last two finals. Tirinzoni, who throws third rocks for her team, also fell to Homan in the finals of the first three Grand Slams this season, but she arrives in Italy on a roll after winning the last two Slams while Homan fell short of the final each time.
Like Homan, Tirinzoni will have to shake off the ghosts of Olympics past in order to win her first medal. She missed the playoffs at 4-5 in 2018 before losing her semifinal and the bronze game after an 8-1 round robin in 2022.
Homan’s opponent in the opening draw on Thursday is Denmark’s Madeleine Dupont. She’s appearing in her fourth Olympics but has never made the playoffs.
The Canadian men’s team, skipped by Brad Jacobs, is off Thursday after today’s extra-end win over Germany to open their tournament. Italy upset defending-champion Sweden, skipped by seven-time world champion Nik Edin, while reigning world champ Bruce Mouat led Great Britain past China.
Freestyle skiing: Mikaël Kingsbury in the men’s moguls finals at 6:15 a.m. ET
Kingsbury has little left to accomplish. He won Olympic gold in 2018, took silvers in 2014 and 2022, owns nine world titles and recently extended his all-time World Cup wins record to an even 100. Last week, he added the honour of carrying the Canadian flag at the opening ceremony.
But, at 33 years old and now a dad, the moguls GOAT has suggested that this will be his final Olympics. And he’ll have a chance to ride off with two more golds as the head-to-head dual moguls event joins the program for the first time.
Kingsbury is favoured to win the regular moguls gold on Thursday, but he’s no lock after paring back his schedule this season while nursing a groin injury. He placed third in qualifying on Tuesday — trailing Ikuma Horishima, the Japanese star who halted Kingsbury’s run of three straight moguls world titles last year, and 24-year-old Canadian Julien Viel, who won first World Cup gold last month in a dual moguls competition in Quebec.
The finals consist of two rounds. The top eight in the first run advance to the medal run at 6:55 a.m. ET.
Women’s hockey: Canada vs. Finland at 8:30 a.m. ET
Defending-champion Canada (2-1) is reeling from Tuesday’s 5-0 beating at the hands of the archrival United States. Star Canadian captain Marie-Philip Poulin sat out due to the apparent knee injury she suffered on Monday against Czechia and is doubtful to play in the round-robin finale against the Finns, according to head coach Troy Ryan. But he’s “optimistic” she’ll be back at some point in the tournament after being told by the medical staff that the injury is “not as bad as they originally thought.”
That’s good news. But the deeper, darker question facing Canada is whether Poulin’s return would even be enough. The world-champion Americans badly outshot and outplayed the Canadians from the opening face-off and have looked like the younger, faster and just straight-up better team all season, going 5-0 against Canada while outscoring them 29-7. And the Canadians are running out of time to find answers ahead of their expected gold-medal rematch on Feb. 19.
A win over Finland (1-2) would give the Canadians second place in their group and set up a quarterfinal matchup on Saturday against Germany, which finished second in the other, much weaker group.
Snowboarding: Éliot Grondin in the men’s snowboard cross (final at 9:01 a.m. ET)
Grondin won two Olympic medals as a 20-year-old in 2022, taking silver in the men’s event and bronze in the mixed team with Meryeta O’Dine, who’s out of these Games after breaking her ankle during practice last week.
Four years later, Grondin is favoured to complete the rainbow set with a men’s gold after winning the world championship last year along with his second consecutive World Cup title. However, snowboard cross (basically BMX on snow) is a volatile sport, and this season Grondin has just one medal (a silver) in three individual World Cup appearances and ranks second in the standings to Australia’s Lambert, who won a gold and two bronze in his three starts.
The competition begins with seeding runs at 4 a.m. ET. The elimination rounds start at 7:45 a.m. ET and lead up to the four-man medal race at 9:01 a.m. ET.
Speed skating: Isabelle Weidemann in the women’s 5,000m at 10:30 a.m. ET
Weidemann scored a silver in this event at the 2022 Olympics, where she collected a medal of each colour and was named the Canadian flag-bearer for the closing ceremony. At 30 years old, she remains a podium threat in long track’s longest women’s race after taking silver at a World Cup meet in the Netherlands in December and placing fifth in the Olympic 3,000m on Saturday.
Canada’s Valérie Maltais, who took bronze in the 3,000m, is not in the 5,000. But 3,000m winner Francesca Lollobrigida of Italy and runner-up Ragne Wiklund are, and the latter will skate with Weidemann in the second-last pairing.
Men’s hockey: Canada vs. Czechia at 10:40 a.m. ET
The wait is over. For the first time in 12 years, Canadians will watch their NHL stars compete in the Olympics. Canada is going for its third consecutive “best on best” title after winning Olympic gold in 2010 and 2014 and then beating the rival United States in the final of last year’s extremely heated 4 Nations Face-Off.
This Canadian team is so loaded at forward that Sidney Crosby is the No. 3 centre, behind Connor McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon — the top two scorers in the NHL. At practice, McDavid has been skating on an interesting line with 19-year-old rising star Macklin Celebrini and big Tom Wilson, the bruising Capitals winger who over the last couple years has added a nice scoring touch to his considerable brawn.
The other combos today were MacKinnon with Brandon Hagel and Sam Reinhart; Crosby with Mitch Marner and Mark Stone; and Bo Horvat between Brad Marchand and Nick Suzuki. Injury replacements Seth Jarvis and Sam Bennett, brought in for Anthony Cirelli and Brayden Point, round out the forwards. The defence is anchored by reigning Norris Trophy winner Cale Makar and Devon Toews, who play together on the Avalanche blue-line.
The big question is who starts in net? Statistically, Logan Thompson of the Capitals is clearly the best option. But he was left off the 4 Nations roster (reportedly due to personality conflicts with some assistant coaches) and Jordan Binnington of the Blues played very well in the final to help beat the U.S. as McDavid scored the overtime winner. The Avalanche’s Darcy Kuemper is the other goalie on the roster.
Head coach Jon Cooper refused to name his opening-game starter today but was highly complimentary of Binnington’s play at the 4 Nations. “On the biggest stage, at the biggest moment, at the biggest time, he delivered,” Cooper said.
Czechia is pretty strong in net with Karel Vejmelka of the Utah Mammoth, who’s tied for the NHL lead in wins this season. The Czechs, who were left out of the 4 Nations, also feature Bruins forward David Pastrnak, who has 71 points in 52 games this season.
The other men’s hockey matchups on Thursday are Switzerland vs. France at 6:10 a.m. ET and a pair of games at 3:10 p.m. ET: Germany vs. Denmark and the U.S. vs. Latvia.
Short track speed skating: Will Dandjinou in the men’s 1,000m, Courtney Sarault in the women’s 500m (finals starting at 3:36 p.m. ET)
Last but certainly not least, Canada has a great chance to win more medals in short track after grabbing a silver in the mixed team relay on Monday.
Dandjinou is the best short track skater on the planet. He captured his second consecutive World Tour men’s overall title this season by winning seven of a possible 12 individual races, and he racked up five medals over the last two championships, including a 1,000m gold in 2024 and silver last year. After anchoring the Canadian mixed relay team to its silver, the 24-year-old Olympic rookie continues his quest to win five medals in Milan, which would tie the Canadian record for the most at a single Games (Winter or Summer) set by speed skater Cindy Klassen in 2006 in Turin, Italy. The 1,000m poses a challenge, though, as only one of Dandjinou’s World Tour wins this season came in this distance.
Joining Dandjinou in the quarterfinals is Félix Roussel, one of his teammates in the mixed relay final. However, reigning 1,000m world champion Steven Dubois did not make it after crashing out in qualifying.
Sarault, who also skated in the mixed relay final, is a strong medal contender in the women’s 500m. The 25-year-old claimed her first World Tour overall title this season after winning five events, including a 500m victory at the season finale in the Netherlands. She also won a silver in the 500 in Montreal, though none of her five career individual medals at the world championships came in short track’s shortest distance.
Also qualifying for the women’s 500m quarterfinals were Canada’s Kim Boutin and
Florence Brunelle. Boutin earned her fifth career Olympic medal in the mixed relay and reached the 500m podium at each of the last two Games.
The quarterfinals start at 2:15 p.m. ET with the women’s 500m, followed immediately by the men’s 1,000m quarters and then the semifinals for each event. The women’s final is at 3:36 p.m. ET and the men’s at 3:48 p.m. ET.
Some international athletes to watch on Thursday
Alpine skiing: Dual-sport star Ester Ledecka goes for another women’s super-G gold
The Czech skier/snowboarder made history in 2018 by becoming the first athlete to win both a snowboard race (the parallel giant slalom) and one on skis (the alpine super-G) at the same Olympics. She repeated as the snowboard PGS champ in 2022 but finished fifth in the super-G. On Sunday, she lost her quarterfinal race in the PGS, ending her bid for an unprecedented third consecutive gold in that event.
The super-G favourites include Italians Sofia Goggia and Federica Brignone. Goggia took bronze in the downhill on Sunday for her third Olympic medal, while Brignone, the reigning World Cup overall champ, just recently returned from a broken leg suffered at the Italian championships last April. Canada’s Val Grenier and Cassidy Gray are not considered medal contenders in the super-G, which starts at 5:30 a.m. ET.
Snowboarding: Chloe Kim tries to three-peat in the women’s halfpipe
The American star showed no signs of being bothered by her recent shoulder injury, posting the top score in qualifying today as she tries to become the first snowboarder ever to win three consecutive Olympic gold medals in the same event.
Canada’s Elizabeth Hosking placed eighth in qualifying to advance to the 12-person final, which starts at 1:30 p.m. ET and consists of three runs.
Skeleton: Ukraine’s Vladyslav Heraskevych vows to wear his controversial helmet in the men’s event
For his practice runs in Italy, Heraskevych has been wearing a customized helmet showing the faces of more than 20 Ukrainian athletes and coaches killed since Russia invaded the country in 2022, right after the Beijing Winter Olympics. But the IOC says the helmet is not allowed in competition because it violates Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter, which bars any kind of “demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda.” Officials have asked Heraskevych not to wear it when the men’s event officially begins at 3:30 a.m. ET.
For more on this and other international storylines to follow, read Richard Deitsch’s daily Olympic notebook.
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