NHL players arrive in Milan, returning to the Winter Olympics after a 12-year absence
- - NHL players arrive in Milan, returning to the Winter Olympics after a 12-year absence
STEPHEN WHYNO February 8, 2026 at 10:56 PM
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1 / 2Milan Cortina Olympics Opening CeremonyDavid Pastrnak, flag bearer of Czechia arrives during the Olympic opening ceremony at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Friday, Feb. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)
MILAN (AP) — Lukas Dostal was in a rush to get to the Olympics. Earlier this week, the Czech goaltender became the first NHL player to take the ice for practice with his national team.
“What would I do in Anaheim, shoot the puck to the boards and try to stop it myself? It probably wouldn’t really work," Dostal said.
He is no longer alone.
The rest of the players from the best hockey league in the world arrived in Milan on Sunday. Sweden was the first of the teams made up of almost exclusively NHL talent to take the ice for practice at Milano Santagiulia Arena, with the U.S., Czech Republic, Canada and Finland to follow.
Along with Dostal, about a dozen others arranged transportation to get to Italy before the five charter planes from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport that arrived Sunday morning. That group included Canada's Connor McDavid, Germany's Leon Draisaitl, Czechia's David Pastrnak and a quartet of Americans.
“Really cool just to be around all the athletes,” McDavid told TSN in a brief interview after meeting up with the rest of his Canada teammates. “Special to be here.”
Charlie McAvoy, Zach Werenski, Jake Oettinger and Jeremy Swayman marched in the opening ceremony with the rest of the U.S. delegation at San Siro stadium, as did Switzerland's Nico Hischier, Timo Meier and Jonas Siegenthaler. Draisaitl and Pastrnak were among the seven men's hockey players who served as their nation's flag bearer.
This is the first Olympics with NHL players in a dozen years, dating to Sochi in 2014. The league opted not to participate in 2018, and pandemic-related scheduling issues caused an eleventh-hour change of plans in 2022.
That gap means an entire generation of stars, including McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon, Auston Matthews and Jack Eichel, have never represented their country on this international stage. This is the first so-called best-on-best tournament since the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, but even that had a couple of made-up teams — North Americans 23-and-under and then Europeans from various countries not included — to keep McDavid and MacKinnon from playing with two-time gold medalists Sidney Crosby, Drew Doughty and others.
A few hours before practice, Hockey Canada announced the obvious that Crosby would again wear the “C" as captain. McDavid and Cale Makar are the alternates.
“Connor and Cale, along with our entire group, provide incredible leadership, and I am happy to represent Canada together on the same team," Crosby said.
Sweden named Gabriel Landeskog captain, as expected, with Victor Hedman and Erik Karlsson the alternates. Landeskog and Karlsson are among the four Swedes who also played in the 2014 Olympics, along with Oliver Ekman-Larsson and injury replacement Marcus Johansson.
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AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
Source: “AOL Sports”
