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Looking ahead to Day 8, Canada has a good chance to finally win its first gold medal in short track speed skating, while the Canadian women’s hockey team begins the playoffs and Canada’s curlers face marquee matchups.
We’ll cover all that and more in our daily viewing guide, then get to an update on two injured Canadian stars and a record-breaking performance in cross-country skiing.
Canadian medal chances on Saturday
Here’s what to look for, in chronological order:
Freestyle skiing: Maïa Schwinghammer in the women’s dual moguls at 4:30 a.m. ET
The 24-year-old from Saskatoon placed fifth in the traditional moguls event on Wednesday but is not as strong in the dual, which is making its Olympic debut. This version of the sport also requires athletes to ski down a bumpy course featuring two jumps where they perform aerial tricks. The difference in the dual is that two athletes ski side-by-side, and whoever gets the highest score advances to the next round.
Schwinghammer finished 11th in the dual at last year’s world championships, where she took bronze in the regular moguls. Only one of her four career World Cup medals has come in the dual.
The favourite is American Jaelin Kauf, who’s leading the chase for her second consecutive World Cup title in the dual and won her second straight Olympic silver in the traditional moguls on Wednesday.
Competition begins at 4:30 a.m. ET and leads up to the semifinals at 5:35 a.m. ET, then the “small” final for the bronze medal at 5:46 a.m. ET and the “big” final immediately after that.
Speed skating: Laurent Dubreuil in the men’s 500m at 11 a.m. ET
The Canadian long track team’s top sprinter won the 500m world title in 2021 and, after placing fourth at the 2022 Olympics, took silvers at the world championships in 2023 and ’24. Dubreuil just missed another podium at last year’s worlds, finishing fourth, but remained among the very best on the World Cup tour, finishing second in the standings to U.S. superstar Jordan Stolz.
However, the 33-year-old has been showing his age this season, finishing no better than sixth in any of his 500m races. But a respectable eighth-place showing in the 1,000m (his weaker event) on Wednesday gives some hope that Dubreuil can make one more run at the podium in what is likely the final Olympic race of his career.
Stolz won the 1,000m in Olympic-record time to kick off his quest to win four golds in Milan. The 21-year-old American captured back-to-back 500m world titles before taking silver last year as he was bothered by an illness. Stolz won an absurd 33 of his 43 starts across all distances over the last two seasons, but seven of his losses came in the shorter, higher-variance 500m.
Also on the oval Saturday, Canada’s Olympic champion women’s team pursuit trio of Ivanie Blondin, Valérie Maltais, and Isabelle Weidemann begin their bid for a second straight gold in the quarterfinals at 10 a.m. ET. The semis and final are on Tuesday.
Today, Canada’s Ted-Jan Bloemen finished ninth in the men’s 10,000m. It was the final Olympic race https://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/winter/speed-skating/olympics-long-track-speed-skating-men-10000-final-february-13-9.7088024 for the 39-year-old, who won gold in the 10K and silver in the 5,000m in 2018. Czech teenager Metodej Jílek won gold after taking silver in the 5,000m.
Short track speed skating: Will Dandjinou, Steven Dubois and Felix Roussel in the men’s 1,500m at 2:15 p.m. ET
Dandjinou anchored Canada to a silver in the mixed relay on Tuesday before finishing a disappointing fourth in the men’s 1,000m on Thursday, ending his bid for a Stolzian five medals in five events. The back-to-back World Tour overall champion has a great opportunity to rebound in the 1,500m, where he’s favoured for gold after capturing the world title last year and winning seven of the 10 competitions on the tour over the last two seasons.
Dubois is also looking to bounce back after crashing out in qualifying for the 1,000m as the reigning world champion. A silver in the 1,500 was part of his three-medal haul at the 2022 Olympics in Beijing.
Roussel, who skated with Dandjinou in the mixed relay final, picked up a silver in the 1,500 at the final World Tour stop of the season in November in the Netherlands.
Racing begins with the quarterfinals at 2:15 p.m. ET. The semis are at 3:49 p.m. ET and the final at 4:42 p.m. ET.
Saturday’s short track slate also features the first round of qualifying for the women’s 1,000m at 3:01 p.m. ET and the women’s relay semifinals at 4:05 p.m. ET. Canada’s Courtney Sarault is involved in both after earning a silver in the mixed relay and a solo bronze in the 500m on Thursday.
Other stuff to watch on Saturday
Team Canada captain Marie-Philip Poulin spoke with the media after resuming practice at Milano Cortina 2026.
Women’s hockey: Canada vs. Germany in the quarterfinals at 10:40 a.m. ET
The defending Olympic champs should have little trouble with the Germans. They finished second (behind Sweden) in the much weaker Group B, where women’s hockey’s developing nations are shielded from having to face superpowers Canada and the United States.
Canadian captain Marie-Philip Poulin returned to practice today after sitting out the final two group-stage games with an apparent knee injury but remains questionable for a game Canada can easily handle without her. The focus, presumably, is on getting her as healthy as possible for Canada’s almost-inevitable rematch with the archrival Americans in the gold-medal game next week.
The U.S. advanced to the semifinals today with a 6-0 win over Italy, while Sweden beat Czechia 2-0. The other quarterfinal matchup is Finland vs. Switzerland on Saturday at 3:10 p.m. ET.
In men’s hockey today, along with Canada’s 5-1 win over Switzerland, Finland defeated rival Sweden 4-1, Slovakia got past Italy 3-2 and Czechia beat France 6-3.
Four men’s games are on tap for Saturday. At 6:10 a.m. ET it’s Sweden (1-1) vs. Slovakia (2-0) and Germany (1-0) vs. Latvia (0-1). Finland (1-1) faces Italy (0-2) at 10:40 a.m. ET and the United States (1-0) meets Denmark (0-1) at 3:10 p.m. ET.
Curling: Big day for Canada
After opening with an easy win over Denmark on Thursday, skip Rachel Homan’s Canadian women’s team lost 9-8 to the United States today to fall to 1-1. They play twice on Saturday: against Great Britain at 3:05 a.m. ET and then vs. Switzerland at 1:05 p.m. ET. The Canadians beat Swiss skip Silvana Tirinzoi’s rink in the final of the last two world championships. Before that, Tirinzoni won four straight world titles.
Canada’s men’s team also has a big game against Switzerland at 8:05 a.m. ET. Skips Brad Jacobs and Yannick Schwaller are tied atop the standings at 3-0 after Canada defeated the United States 6-3 and then beat defending Olympic champion Sweden 8-6 in a testy affair. Words were exchanged before the final end, with Sweden’s Oskar Eriksson accusing the Canadians of “double touching” the stone after the hog line and Canada’s Marc Kennedy lobbing a few F-bombs back. “I don’t like our team being accused of cheating, so I told him what I thought of it,” Kennedy said. Here’s more on that spicy game, which dropped seven-time world champ Nik Edin of Sweden to 0-3.
Freestyle skiing: Women’s big air qualifying at 1:30 p.m. ET
The top two Canadians here are Megan Oldham and Naomi Urness. Oldham won bronze in the slopestyle event on Monday for her first Olympic medal and grabbed a big air bronze at the 2023 world championships. Only two of her 11 career World Cup medals have come in big air, but they were both golds.
The 21-year-old Urness burst on the World Cup scene earlier this season with three straight medals in big air, including a gold in Colorado in December. She’s the current World Cup leader.
A couple more things to know
Two injured Canadian stars said they’re good to go.
Pairs figure skater Deanna Stellato-Dudek told reporters she endured “a living nightmare” after hitting her head on the ice during training in Montreal on Jan. 30, causing her and Maxime Deschamps to miss the Olympic team event. Stellato-Dudek wouldn’t say how the injury occurred. But she and Deschamps, the 2024 world champions, have dropped the backflip (which does not earn points) from their program. The pairs event starts Sunday.
Snowboarder Mark McMorris said he’s been cleared to compete in the men’s slopestyle event on Monday after suffering a head injury of his own during practice last week for the big air, which he was forced to miss. Slopestyle is McMorris’ favourite and best event: he’s won three straight Olympic bronze medals.
Norwegian cross-country skier Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo tied the record for most gold medals in the Winter Olympics.
Klaebo won the men’s 10-kilometre interval start race today for his third gold of these Games and eighth of his career. The 29-year-old has three events left to surpass the all-time record he shares with three other Norwegians: cross-country skiers Marit Bjoergen and Bjoern Daehlie, and biathlete Ole Einar Bjoerndalen.
Canadian Tom Stephen finished ninth after Alison Mackie was eighth in women’s 10K interval start on Thursday for Canada’s best-ever result in that event.
For more on Klaebo’s record-tying performance, Ilia Malinin’s shocking meltdown and other international storylines, read Richard Deitsch’s Olympic notebook for Day 7.
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