By: Ryan Bosworth | @RyanJBosworth
It’s February 8th, and just two days ago, we saw the opening ceremony for the 2026 Winter Olympics. It’s the first time since 2014 that the National Hockey League is sending its players overseas to represent their respective countries.
The Boston Bruins currently have nine players heading to Milan to play for gold, representing five different countries: David Pastrnak (Czechia), Charlie McAvoy and Jeremy Swayman (United States), Henri Jokiharju and Joonas Korpisalo (Finland), and Elias Lindholm and Hampus Lindholm (Sweden). Joonas Korpisalo and Hampus Lindholm were both late additions to their respective teams due to injuries.
Up until yesterday, Boston had 10 players participating, as Pavel Zacha was heading to Milan to represent Czechia. He went down with an upper-body injury on January 29th in the Bruins’ 6-3 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers.
Players took to the ice today, participating in the first day of practice ahead of the first set of games, which is set for February 11th. Along with practice beginning, teams started to announce their captains and alternate captains for the tournaments.
David Pastrnak, who was the flag-bearer for Czechia on Friday night, was named an assistant captain of Team Czechia. Alongside Pastrnak is Roman Červenka, who was named captain of Team Czechia, and Radko Gudas, who was named the assistant captain.
The announcement of Pastrnak being named alternate captain comes as no surprise, and neither does the announcements of Team USA’s captain and alternate captains. Bruins alternate captain Charlie McAvoy was named an assistant captain of Team USA, alongside Matthew Tkachuk, who’ll wear the other ‘A,’ and Auston Matthews, who was named captain. Team USA is running with the same leadership group as they did in the Four-Nations Faceoff.
The Olympic preliminary games are set to begin on February 11th, and they run until February 16th. The Olympic qualifier games are set for February 17th, followed by quarter-final games on February 18th, semi-final games on February 20th, the bronze medal game on February 21st, and the gold medal game, which is set for Sunday, February 22nd, at 8:30 a.m.
Leave a Reply