Is Canada now the underdog in women’s hockey?

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The Games have begun.

Competition at the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics opened today with four games in mixed doubles curling, including Canada vs. Czechia. Jocelyn Peterman and Brett Gallant, the married couple hoping to return Canada to the podium after Rachel Homan and John Morris missed the playoffs in 2022, scored a convincing 10-5 win to start the round-robin stage.

In alpine skiing, Canadian Jeff Read clocked the 10th-fastest time in the first practice run for the men’s downhill. Cam Alexander and Jack Crawford, considered Canada’s top two medal hopes on Bormio’s intimidating Stelvio course, placed 20th and 28th, respectively. More training runs are slated for Thursday and Friday ahead of Saturday’s race.

The schedule for tomorrow remains pretty light as things build up toward the opening ceremony on Friday and the first medal events on Saturday. But it does include more mixed doubles curling, the start of snowboarding competition and the Canadian women’s hockey team’s first game.

We’ll start our daily viewing guide with hockey, then cover the other Canadians to watch on Thursday. Plus, a scary crash for Canadian snowboard star Mark McMorris, the latest on Lindsey Vonn, and how a Canadian ice maker saved the day for hockey.

Is Canada now the underdog in women’s hockey?

Over the last decade and a half, it would have been a bit silly to declare a clear favourite in any major international women’s hockey event. Everyone knows that these almost always come down to Canada vs. the United States in the final, but your odds of picking the winner of that game were no better than a coin flip. Dating back to 2011, 12 of the 14 Canada-U.S. clashes in an Olympic or world-championship title game have been decided by one goal, including nine in overtime or a shootout.

In some ways, we should expect more of the same as the Olympic tournament gets underway Thursday in Milan. The rival superpowers are once again heavily favoured to meet in the final, and they each hold one of the major titles. Canada won the Olympic gold in 2022 in Beijing with a 3-2 victory over the U.S., and the Americans took the world championship in Czechia last year by beating Canada 4-3 in overtime.

But there’s a growing sense that the Americans may have surpassed Canada and are now clearly the team to beat. They’ve won six straight head-to-head matchups, including that 2025 world-title game and a clean sweep of this season’s four-game Rivalry Series, where the U.S. bludgeoned Canada by a combined score of  24-7.

Since then, the betting markets have tipped toward the United States, with current prices implying a greater than 60 per cent chance of a U.S. gold-medal victory. And when CBC Sports hired a sports analytics company to calculate the odds, they were even more bullish on the Americans, giving them a 77 per cent chance for gold. 

Looking past the numbers, there seems to be a feeling among people in the know about women’s hockey that the Canadian roster, though still loaded with highly decorated big-name players, is on the wrong side of the aging curve while the U.S. has done a better job of adding young talent.

Having said that, experience can be a big plus when the pressure ratchets up at the Olympics, and the Canadian women have delivered time and again on their sport’s biggest stage, winning five of the last six gold medals. 

No one embodies Canada’s big-game bona fides better than Captain Clutch herself, Marie-Philip Poulin, who’s going for her fourth gold medal in five Olympic appearances. The 34-year-old forward is the only hockey player ever to score in four Olympic finals, and with 17 career Olympic goals the reigning PWHL MVP needs just one more to match Canadian Hayley Wickenheiser’s all-time women’s record.

Another veteran forward could be Canada’s ace in the hole. Thirty-one-year-old Sarah Nurse, who racked up a women’s single-Games record 18 points in 2022, did not play in the Rivalry Series due to an upper-body injury. But she returned to action for the PWHL’s Vancouver Goldeneyes last month and scored three goals in her first two games.

The preliminary stage at the Olympics is a glorified warmup for Canada and the U.S., as all five teams in their group automatically advance to the elimination round along with the top three from the other, much weaker, group. The archrivals square off next Tuesday, but even that will be a mostly meaningless prelude to their expected showdown for gold on Feb. 19.

Canada opens on Thursday at 3:10 p.m. ET against Finland. The Finns are one of the better middle-power teams in the tournament, having won bronze at the last two Olympics and the last two world championships. But they may not be at full strength after cancelling practice today due to a stomach illness affecting at least four players.

For more on the women’s hockey tournament, I suggest you read everything by CBC Sports’ Karissa Donkin. She’s written full team previews for Canada, the U.S., and the top three European teams, including Finland.

Other Canadians to watch on Thursday

Snowboarding: McMorris uncertain for men’s big air qualifying 

The first snowboarding action of the Games was expected to include Canadian star Mark McMorris, who captured the men’s big air world title in 2021 and has won three straight Olympic bronze medals in the slopestyle event. The 32-year-old recently added his record-extending 12th Winter X Games gold with a slopestyle victory in Aspen, Colo.

However, Morris crashed during nighttime training today in Livigno and was taken away on a stretcher. As of our publish time, there was no word on his condition.

Three other Canadians are competing in the men’s big air, a high-flying event where riders do several spins after taking off from a giant ramp that in Livigno stands more than 50 metres tall.

Two of them, like McMorris, are more accomplished in slopestyle. Cam Spalding captured the slopestyle World Cup title last season, while Frank Jobin won a slopestyle World Cup gold in Aspen last year. But 18-year-old Eli Bouchard, the youngest member of the entire Canadian Olympic team, grabbed bronze in the big air at the 2024 junior world championships and last year won a World Cup gold in Aspen by landing his signature “triple moose flip” trick.

Qualifying begins at 1:30 p.m. ET and consists of three runs. The top 12 in the field of 30 advance to Saturday’s final.

Mixed doubles curling: Two games for Canada

With today’s win over a pretty weak Czech team under their belts, Canada’s Jocelyn Peterman and Brett Gallant will face tougher competition on Thursday when they take on Norway at 8:35 a.m. ET and host Italy at 1:05 p.m. ET.

Italy’s Stefania Constantini and Amos Mosaner are the reigning Olympic and world champions and are favoured to strike gold again on home ice. Norway’s Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten are the only duo to get a medal in each of the first two Olympic mixed doubles tournaments. In 2018 they lost the bronze game but were later awarded the medal after one of their Russian opponents failed a doping test. Four years later, they upgraded to silver as Constantini and Mosaner beat them in the final.

A few more things to know

1. Lindsey Vonn’s coach has “no doubts” she can compete with a torn ACL.

Four days after injuring her left knee in a crash during her final race before the Olympics, Vonn confirmed yesterday that she has a torn ACL and other damage in the knee but will attempt to race through it. Naturally, everyone is wondering whether this will actually be possible or if the 41-year-old American superstar is just unwilling to give up on her quest to win gold after coming out of a five-year retirement to make it to her sixth Olympics.

Well, Vonn’s coach is a believer. “I’m pretty confident that she can still pull off this dream,” Chris Knight said today. “I’ve got no doubts in my mind that this is going to be OK.” He added that Vonn is working overtime with two physical therapists and a fitness trainer, doing box jumps, pool work and even some “high-speed skiing.”

Tomorrow was supposed to be a big day for Vonn with the first women’s downhill practice set to take place in Cortina d’Ampezzo, one of her favourite venues. But it was cancelled today due to heavy snowfall. Two more training sessions are scheduled for Friday and Saturday ahead of Sunday’s race. Here’s more on Vonn’s recovery. 

2. Leon Draisaitl was named a flag-bearer for Germany.

Connor McDavid’s star sidekick on the Edmonton Oilers will carry the Germany colours during Friday’s opening ceremony along with ski jumper Katharina Schmid.

Draisaitl, a five-time NHL All-Star and the league MVP in 2019-20, is one of many NHL stars playing in the Olympics for the first time after the league declined to participate in 2018 and 2022. McDavid and his Canadian teammate Nathan MacKinnon, the top two in the current NHL scoring race, are also making their Olympic debuts.

Canada’s flag-bearers are moguls skier Mikaël Kingsbury and ski cross racer Marielle Thompson, who are both competing in their fourth Olympics and going for their second gold medal. Other notable national flag-bearers on Friday will include former NHL forward Tomas Tatar for Slovakia and alpine skiing star Federica Brignone for host Italy.

3. The Olympic hockey ice is good to go.

A month ago, the Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena in Milan was still a construction site, and many feared it wouldn’t be ready in time for the Games. The NHL even threatened to pull its players if the ice surface, built a few feet short of the league standard, was deemed unsafe.

What a difference a few weeks can make. While the arena still isn’t completely finished, there are no longer concerns about its ability to host games or the quality of the ice. For that, you can thank Don Moffatt, the 67-year-old Canadian ice master who worked tirelessly to get the playing surface up to code. CBC Sports contributor Chris Jones has the story on exactly how Moffatt pulled off this Italian miracle on ice.

How to watch

Along with TV broadcasts on CBC and its partner networks Sportsnet and TSN, you can stream all of the action from the Milano-Cortina Games live and on demand exclusively at CBC Gem.

The app is free to download and watch, but you’ll need to create an account. So, if you haven’t already, make sure to take care of that right away. You can also access Gem on your desktop web browser at gem.cbc.ca. 

For a full listing of what’s on each day, see the full CBC Olympic streaming schedule.

Also, be sure to visit CBC’s Milano-Cortina Olympics website for news, in-depth features, event schedules, athlete bios and on-demand highlights of the biggest moments and events. You can personalize your Olympics feed to feature your favourite sports, and get daily emails with news and schedules related to your choices.

Here’s more on all the ways you can follow the Olympics with CBC.

Something else to check out

The Game, CBC’s nightly Olympic trivia contest, is back. Test your sports knowledge for your chance to win prizes, including a trip to Mexico. Pre-register now and practice with the demo game so you’re ready when the real competition kicks off Feb 6.