Milan Cortina 2026: Meet Team USA’s hockey squad full of NHL stars

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🚨 Headlines

🥇 Olympic highlights: Team USA won five more medals on Wednesday, including golds for 21-year-old Jordan Stolz in 1000m speed skating and 20-year-old Elizabeth Lemley in moguls. The others were all silver, for married figure skaters Madison Chock and Evan Bates (ice dance), alpine skier Ryan Cochran-Siegle (super G), and freestyle skier Jaelin Kauf (moguls).

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🏀 Hall of Fame finalists: First-time nominees Blake Griffin, Candace Parker, Mike D’Antoni and Kelvin Sampson headline the candidates for The Naismith Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026. Doc Rivers and Amar’e Stoudemire are among the bigger names getting a second look for induction.

⚾️ Hamate bone woes: Diamondbacks RF Corbin Carroll, Mets SS Francisco Lindor and Orioles 2B Jackson Holliday have all broken their hamate bone and will need surgery. The hand injury is common among baseball players because the knob of their bats rest up against the bony protrusion.

🏈 Bowl game consolidation: The Detroit-based GameAbove Sports Bowl has been canceled, joining the Bahamas Bowl and LA Bowl as the third bowl game to be axed in the last 12 months as college football’s postseason skews increasingly away from tradition and towards the playoff.

🏀 Clark headlines Team USA: Two years after being a controversial snub from the U.S. Olympic team, Caitlin Clark will finally make her senior national team debut after being named to the World Cup qualifying roster alongside Paige Bueckers, Angel Reese and other WNBA stars.

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🇺🇸 Spotlight: Men’s hockey team

The first best-on-best Olympic hockey tournament since 2014 is officially underway, and Team USA takes the ice today with a squad full of NHL stars looking to deliver the Americans’ first gold medal since 1980’s “Miracle on Ice.”

Meet the team: The 25-man roster comprises eight defenders, nine wingers, five centers and three goalies, with 18 NHL teams and 12 states represented. There are also two sets of siblings (Hughes and Tkachuk), which is pretty awesome. Well done, parents.

• Defenders: Brock Faber, Wild (hometown: Maple Grove, MN); Quinn Hughes, Wild (Canton, MI); Jackson LaCombe, Ducks (Eden Prairie, MN); Charlie McAvoy, Bruins (Long Beach, NY); Jaccob Slavin, Hurricanes (Erie, CO); Zach Werenski, Blue Jackets (Grosse Pointe Woods, MI); Noah Hanifin, Golden Knights (Norwood, MA); Jake Sanderson, Senators (Whitefish, MT)

• Wingers: Brady Tkachuk, Senators (St. Louis); Matthew Tkachuk, Panthers (St. Louis); Matt Boldy, Wild (Millis, MA); Dylan Larkin, Red Wings (Waterford, MI); Clayton Keller, Mammoth (St. Louis); Jake Guentzel, Lightning (Woodbury, MN); Tage Thompson, Sabres (Orange, CT); J.T. Miller, Rangers (East Palestine, OH); Kyle Connor, Jets (Shelby Township, MI)

• Centers: Jack Eichel, Golden Knights (North Chelmsford, MA); Auston Matthews, Maple Leafs (Scottsdale, AZ); Jack Hughes, Devils (Canton, MI); Vincent Trocheck, Rangers (Pittsburgh); Brock Nelson, Avalanche (Warroad, MN)

• Goalies: Connor Hellebuyck, Jets (Commerce, MI); Jake Oettinger, Stars (Lakeville, MN); Jeremy Swayman, Bruins (Anchorage, AK)

Collision course? 21 of those 25 players also represented the U.S. at last year’s 4 Nations Face-Off, where the Americans made the title game before falling to Canada in overtime. They’ll bring that chemistry with them to Milan, where the odds suggest we could be headed for a title game rematch: Canada (+100 to win at BetMGM) and the U.S. (+190) are heavily favored over the field.

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Tournament format: 12 teams have been split into three groups. They’ll each play a round-robin, with the three group winners and the fourth-best team advancing directly to the quarterfinals. The remaining eight teams then face each other for one more qualifier to complete the final eight.

• The field: Group A (Canada, Czechia, Switzerland, France); Group B (Slovakia, Italy, Sweden, Finland); Group C (USA, Germany, Latvia, Denmark)

• Team USA’s schedule: The Americans play Latvia today (3:10pm ET, USA), Denmark on Saturday and Germany on Sunday. The quarterfinals are next Wednesday, the semifinals next Friday and the gold-medal match is on Feb. 22, the final day of the Games.

We’ll be spotlighting America’s best athletes throughout the Games. Follow Team USA’s progress on their homepage, and for in-depth Olympics coverage, go to ours.

🥇 Medal table: Day 6

37 of 116 events completed. Full table.

📺 Watchlist: Thursday, Feb. 12

🏂 Snowboard Halfpipe, Women’s Final

Eight years ago, Chloe Kim burst on the scene as a teenage phenom; today at Livigno Snow Park (1:30pm ET, NBC), she’ll try to become the first snowboarder in Olympic history to win three straight gold medals. And judging by Wednesday’s qualifier, which she dominated despite having torn her labrum last month, the other 11 finalists will have their hands full trying to dethrone her.

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What she’s saying: “I knew I could do it,” said Kim, referencing her shoulder injury. “I’ve been doing this for 22 years. Muscle memory is a thing. I might be better at snowboarding than I am at walking.” Friendly reminder, re: “doing this for 22 years” — she’s only 25!

🏒 Men’s Hockey

Team USA’s group stage opener against Latvia (3:10pm, USA) is one of four games today. The others: Switzerland vs. France (6:10am, Peacock), Czechia vs. Canada (10:40am, USA) and Germany vs. Denmark (3:10pm, Peacock).

The favorites: Canada won three of the first five Olympic tournaments featuring NHL players (1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014), including each of the last two. Today we’ll get our first look at their squad led by former Hart Trophy winners Sidney Crosby, Connor McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon, as well as teen phenom Macklin Celebrini.

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🏂 Snowboard Cross, Men’s Final

Nick Baumgartner, 44, is already the oldest snowboarding medalist in Olympics history after winning mixed team cross in Beijing. Now, back for his fifth Winter Games, he’s out to prove age is just a number when he straps on his board for today’s final (7:45am, Peacock).

How it works: Unlike most snowboarding events, cross is a race in which competitors speed through a course filled with curves and jumps. The 32-man final is elimination style, with the top two finishers in each four-man race advancing until just four remain for the championship run.

⛸️ Short Track Speed Skating, Women’s 500m Final

Connecticut native Kristen Santos-Griswold is back for another shot at gold four years after the podium was stolen from her in Beijing. She’s already advanced to the quarterfinals (2:15pm, USA), with the title race coming a little over an hour later.

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Flashback: Four years ago in her Olympics debut, Santos-Griswold was in position to win a medal with less than a lap to go in the 1000m final. But when Italy’s Arianna Fontana attempted an aggressive pass, the two skaters became entangled and spun out on the ice, and she ended up finishing fourth. “The hardest part about this sport,” she said recently, “is that kind of concept of, you can be the best, you can be the fastest, and things just don’t work out for you.”

🥇 Medal events

• 🎿 Freestyle Skiing: Men’s Moguls, Final (6:15am, Peacock)

• 🎿 Cross-Country Skiing: Women’s 10km Freestyle (7am, Peacock)

• ⛸️ Speed Skating: Women’s 5000m (10:30am, Peacock)

• 🛷 Luge: Team Relay Final (12:30pm, Peacock)

• ⛸️ Short Track Speed Skating: Men’s 1000m Final (2:15pm, USA)

Daily schedule.

More to watch:

• ⛳️ PGA: Pebble Beach Pro-Am (11:45am, ESPN+; 3pm, Golf) … Defending champion Rory McIlroy makes his season debut against the likes of Scottie Scheffler and red-hot Chris Gotterup in the first signature event of the year.

• 🏀 NBA: Bucks at Thunder (7:30pm, Prime); Mavericks at Lakers (10pm, Prime) … Final day of games before the All-Star break.

• 🏀 NCAAW: No. 17 TCU at No. 12 Baylor (7pm, ESPN); No. 4 Texas at No. 5 Vanderbilt (7:30pm, SEC+) … Commodores guard Mikayla Blakes leads the nation in scoring (25.9 ppg).

• 🏁 NASCAR: Duels at Daytona (7pm, FS1) … Two 60-lap, 150-mile qualifying races will set the grid positions for this weekend’s Daytona 500.

Got plans tonight? Gametime is the best place to score last-minute tickets to the events happening in your city. Get tickets now!

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❤️ Why we love sports

Josh Hyman (Forest Hills, New York):

In the 1990s, my formative teenage years, I grew up a New York Giants fan, which is to say the next decade was about to be rough. I first became a fan during the legendary years of #89 Mark Bavaro catching passes all over the field and running defenders over, or carrying them on his back to the end zone.

Free agency was a newer thing in the early 90s, so when Bavaro left to go play with the Browns and then eventually the Eagles, I was confused and heartbroken. How could he? The Eagles? (Did Saquon call him for advice?)

By 1993, I understood how it all worked and was still a huge Giants fan. Then my father took me to a game that season where the Giants beat the Eagles soundly, 21-10. Bavaro played in that game but it seemed that nobody in the building remembered him. Not even boos. Just a ghost of Super Bowls past.

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After the game, I spotted Bavaro in the parking lot. Nobody was swarming him. Nobody even recognized him. It was so strange but here he was, strutting right toward me. Rambo in the flesh!

Short, stout, baby-faced, 16-year-old me ran over and asked him for an autograph to which he looked me up and down wearing Giants blue, smiled and obliged. This was before the days of cell phones and selfies, just game programs and Bic Pens.

I gave him my game program and he turned to a page in the book that had a picture of him wearing Eagles green and #86. But when he signed my book, he signed it “Mark Bavaro, #89”

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It was epic. It was like his heart never left the Meadowlands. He knew and I knew that he was always going to be a New York Football GIANT, no matter how the business of the NFL or free agency worked. Then he gave me a high-five and walked off to his car without anyone else saying a word to him.

That day, Mark Bavaro got another moment to be a New York Giant as his legendary #89, and I got my favorite autograph story ever.

✍️ Submit your story: Do you have a fondest sports memory? Or an example of sports having a profound impact on your life? If you’d like to share, email me at kendall.baker@yahooinc.com. We’ll keep sharing your stories until they run out!

📸 Layers of the Games

Through the combination of multiple images from a fixed camera, Getty Images’ “Layers of the Games” series shows the quickfire drama that unfolds in a single game or a day of competition during the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics.

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Above: Women’s Freestyle Slopestyle

Above: Women’s Parallel Giant Slalom

Above: Men’s Freestyle Slopestyle

Above: Ice Dance, Rhythm Dance

🏆 Seattle trivia

The Seahawks held their Super Bowl parade on Wednesday to celebrate the city’s fourth “Big Four” championship (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL), with the first coming all the way back in 1917 when they won the Stanley Cup.

Question: What was the name of that 1917 championship team?

(A) Seattle Pilots

(B) Seattle Rainiers

(C) Seattle Metropolitans

(D) Seattle Rangers

Answer at the bottom.

🏀 The season of the Red Hawks

The only undefeated team in Division I men’s basketball? The Miami (Ohio) RedHawks, who are 24-0 and ranked No. 23. The only undefeated team in D-III men’s basketball? The Montclair State (NJ) Red Hawks, who are 23-0 and ranked No. 1 for the first time ever.

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Trivia answer: (C) Seattle Metropolitans

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