Ice Hockey at the 2026 Winter Olympics

The Milano Cortina ice hockey tournaments were highly anticipated, with games being played in the Milan cluster at the Fiera Milano and PalaItalia. Two tournaments, men and women, were contested for the 8th Olympiad , since Nagano 1998.

The men’s tournament was highly anticipated, as it saw the return of players from the National Hockey League (NHL) to Olympic competition, with much speculation and predictions from the media in the preceding years. The defending gold medallists from Beijing 2022 were Finland, while Canada had won the last two tournaments with NHL players competing (Sochi 2014 and Vancouver 2010). Canada had also been victorious in the recent Four Nations Cup held by the NHL in 2024, winning a closely contested game in overtime against the United States. The tournament played out as expected, with Canada and the United States meeting once again in the championship match, this time with the Americans defeating Canada 2-1 in another closely contested match, requiring overtime.

For the women’s tournament, though Canada were the two-time defending gold medallists, dating back to Pyeongchang 2018, the defending world champion United States came into the tournament with a six-game winning streak against the Canadians, from games played in a Rivalry Series played in late 2025 and the 2025 World Championships. After Beijing 2022, the Professional Women’s Hockey League was formed in 2023, serving as an important milestone in top competition as the highest-level professional league for women’s ice hockey. Players in the women’s tournament consisted of players from women’s leagues in Europe, college ice hockey in North America, and the PWHL. For the fifth straight Olympics dating back to Vancouver 2010, Canada and the United States played for gold, while Switzerland and Sweden played for the bronze. The bronze was won by Switzerland in a closely contested match that required overtime to settle. Similar to the men’s tournament, the Canadians and Americans also required overtime to settle the championship match, which was won by the United States by a matching score of 2-1 less than five minutes into the extra frame, on a goal by Meghan Keller.