Author: rb809rb

The nation’s No. 1 team faced one of its toughest tests of the season in a road game against No. 7 Purdue on Tuesday.

It passed with no issue. Michigan opened up a 16-point halftime lead and went on to a 91-80 win over a Purdue team that entered Tuesday’s game with two wins over top-10 opponents and riding a four-game win streak.

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But the Boilermakers were no match for a Michigan team that continues to look like the best in the nation. The win will bolster Michigan’s case for the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA tournament, a path that was cleared last week when previously undefeated Arizona lost two straight games.

Michigan blows game open early, doesn’t look back

Tuesday’s game was close for only the opening minutes. The Wolverines turned an 11-10 deficit at the 13:36 mark of the first into a 26-11 lead with 9:28 remaining and never looked back.

They extended the lead to 48-28 before halftime and entered the break with a 48-32 advantage despite the best efforts of a raucous Mackey Arena crowd.

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Purdue eventually whittled the deficit to single digits late in the second half, but never got any closer than 86-78. Michigan’s lead was never in peril. Point guard Elliot Cadeau led the Michigan effort with 17 points, 7 assists and 4 rebounds.

The Wolverines outshot the Boilermakers from the field 53% to 39% and were overwhelming from 3-point distance (57%, 13 of 23). Michigan secured a 39-31 rebounding advantage and assisted on 24 of its 30 made field goals.

Another impressive Michigan win

Now Michigan has another double-digit win over a quality opponent in a season filled with them. For the season, that adds up to 20 of Michigan’s 25 wins by 10 points or more. The Wolverines also have 14 wins by 20-plus points, 10 by 30-plus points and seven by 40 or more.

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This is all while playing in one of the nation’s best conferences and a preseason schedule that included No. 21 Auburn and No. 12 Gonzaga, which Michigan beat by 30 and 40 points, respectively.

Michigan’s only loss remains a 91-88 defeat to Wisconsin in January. It faces what may be its toughest test yet next — a showdown with No. 3 Duke in Washington D.C. on Saturday.

NC State took full advantage of its injured in-state rival on Tuesday night.

The Wolfpack rolled to a dominant 82-58 blowout win over No. 16 North Carolina at the Lenovo Center, marking their first win over the Tar Heels in nearly two years and their largest over North Carolina since 1962. It also marked North Carolina’s second loss to an unranked opponent in a three-game span after its huge upset win over No. 4 Duke earlier this month.

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After a back and forth on the first few possessions, NC State opened the game on a 16-8 run and never looked back. The Wolfpack took a 16-point lead into the locker room at halftime, and then Matt Able pushed that to 20 with a tip-in near the midway point of the second period. From there, the deficit was too big for North Carolina to overcome. NC State rolled to grab the 24-point win without any issue.

Zayden High led North Carolina with 13 points and 10 rebounds, and Jarin Stevenson added 13 points and nine rebounds. They were the only North Carolina players to hit double figures in the loss, and the Tar Heels went just 5 of 33 from behind the arc.

To North Carolina’s credit, it was extremely shorthanded. The Tar Heels were without forward Caleb Wilson, who is out with a recent hand fracture he suffered early in the team’s loss to Miami. He is on track to return “soon,” though it’s unclear when he’ll be back. Wilson is averaging 19.8 points and 9.4 rebounds per game. Center Henri Veesaar was also ruled out with a lower body injury, which kept him out of the team’s win over Pittsburgh on Saturday. James Brown and Ivan Matlekovic were out, too.

The loss dropped North Carolina to 20-6 on the season. The Tar Heels will take on Syracuse next on Saturday. While they are still very much a NCAA tournament team, they are rapidly running out of time to get healthy and back on track before March.

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Quadir Copeland led NC State with 20 points after he shot 7 of 16 from the field. Able added 19 points off the bench. While it came against a down North Carolina team, it was easily the Wolfpack’s biggest win of the season so far. It also came after they had lost back-to-back games, including a 41-point loss at Louisville in which they allowed 118 points.

The victory, their second against a ranked opponent, got them to 19-8 on the year and very likely secured a spot in the NCAA tournament barring a late collapse down the stretch. The Wolfpack will travel to No. 14 Virginia on Saturday, and will still have to host No. 3 Duke to close out the regular season.

Chris Paul’s NBA career is over after 21 seasons, and the way he went out is going to be remembered for quite some time.

Officially, Paul retired Friday, shortly after his release by the Toronto Raptors. However, his last game was months ago with the Los Angeles Clippers, who signed him for his final season in the NBA, then benched him, sent him home and traded him to Toronto.

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In an appearance on his friend Carmelo Anthony’s “7PM in Brooklyn” podcast filmed last weekend, Paul addressed the circumstances of his Clippers exit. The podcast posted only part of the interview on social media as of Tuesday night, but Paul’s comments painted a picture of a relationship that went from friendly to contentious at rapid speed.

As Paul tells it, he reached out to both Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue and president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank to signal his interest in finishing his career in Los Angeles, where he was a five-time All-Star.

The reunion made for a nice story. No one expected Paul to replicate his old numbers with the Clippers, but at worst he could give them depth at point guard while supplying veteran experience, cementing his legacy as one of the franchise’s greats and playing near his Los Angeles-based family.

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It was apparently going according to plan at one point in the season, as Paul claimed Frank praised his leadership:

“Earlier in the season, Lawrence Frank sent me an article about how great my leadership was, an article I had never seen. He texted it to me saying, ‘Man, this is great leadership right here.’”

However, as we learned in the aftermath of Paul’s benching, there were apparently some major communication issues involving Paul and Lue. The pair reportedly clashed over Paul’s attempts to provide his own guidance to members of the team and coach and player were allegedly not on speaking terms by the end, though Lue has denied that latter part.

Paul, however, confirmed that some members of the Clippers organization didn’t want him giving players advice:

“During training camp, I talked to one of my teammates for a while and then, as soon as I went in the meal room, somebody came and told me they didn’t want me giving players advice. So I told them, ‘You were my assistant coach, I know you.’ But it was a lot of back-and-forth.”

Paul is possibly referring to Lue with that “I know you” line, as Lue was an assistant on the Clippers coaching staff during Paul’s first tenure there.

When the subject of the Clippers retiring Paul’s jersey number came up — which would be highly awkward anytime in the near future — Paul said that Frank actually said his number should be retired … before dropping the ax. He also indicated Frank neglected to set up a meeting with Lue, indicating there might be something to the reports they weren’t talking:

“[Frank] said that to me before he sent me home. … Before I left the room, I asked him, ‘So L-Frank, you said you was gonna get me a meeting with T-Lue, right?’ He said, ‘I’m sorry, I couldn’t do that. Go home.’”

There’s no telling what Paul’s relationship with the Clippers will be going forward. The team posted a tribute video for him after he announced his retirement, so there might be a willingness to bury the hatchet on their side already, but no one’s going to blame Paul for keeping them at arm’s length as long as the current leadership is in place.

Former Michigan football head coach Sherrone Moore will get an evidentiary hearing next month.

A judge granted Moore’s motion for the hearing Tuesday, which will allow his lawyer to challenge the basis for his arrest in their quest to have the case thrown out, according to The Athletic. That hearing is currently set for March 2.

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Moore’s attorney argued in court Tuesday that a detective did not disclose that the alleged victim in the case had worked closely with him within the Michigan football program. That, his attorney argued, presented a one-sided picture that was used to establish probable cause for his arrest in the first place.

“Judge Simpson got it right in this motion, and due process matters,” Moore’s attorney Ellen Michaels said. “Coach Moore maintains his innocence, and the truth will come out.”

Moore was fired in December and then arrested hours later in a massive scandal. The university fired him for cause after it said he “engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a staff member.” He was eventually charged with third-degree home invasion, stalking, and breaking and entering. Officials said Moore grabbed butter knives and kitchen scissors at the woman’s house after he was fired and threatened to take his own life.

In court Tuesday, Michaels argued that a detective told a court magistrate only that the alleged victim had been in a romantic relationship with Moore, not that the alleged victim also worked for the Michigan football program and needed to communicate with Moore regularly. That meant that repeated communication from Moore to the alleged victim, Michaels argued, may not actually constitute stalking.

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Michigan reportedly received a tip in October that Moore had been in a relationship with the alleged victim, though they initially denied it. Officials then said the woman broke up with Moore and came forward to the university in December to reveal the yearslong relationship.

Prosecutor Kati Rezmierski argued Tuesday that disclosing the working relationship would not have altered the underlying facts that justified Moore’s arrest, per the report. Rezmierski cited messages that Moore sent after his firing, including allegedly, “I hate you,” and “My blood is on your hands,” as evidence of the stalking.

“On Dec. 10, as was sworn to by detective Welker, there is more than sufficient probable cause for the issuance of a warrant that includes stalking,” Rezmierski said. “That’s my position.”

Moore had been Michigan’s offensive coordinator under previous head coach Jim Harbaugh, though he was promoted to take over for Harbaugh before the 2024 season. He spent two seasons as the team’s head coach. Michigan has since hired Kyle Whittingham as its next head coach.

Los Angeles Lakers center Deandre Ayton was detained and quickly released on Tuesday on suspicion of possessing a small amount of marijuana at Lynden Pindling International Airport in the Bahamas, according to Reuters.

Ayton would have been returning to the United States from his native Bahamas as the All-Star break nears its end.

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In an initial report from TMZ, the central division of the Royal Bahamas Police Force claimed Ayton was searched after he was spotted smoking marijuana at the airport. Reuters also reports Ayton was found with the drug, which is still illegal in the Bahamas.

However, his lawyer Devard Francis said the suspected marijuana was actually in someone else’s bag and that Ayton was never arrested or charged, via Reuters:

“The investigators saw that the actual very small amount of marijuana wasn’t in Deandre’s bag, but they still went through their investigations and he was released expeditiously,” Francis said.

Ayton, a former No. 1 overall pick, is in his first season with the Lakers, who signed him to a two-year, $16.6 million deal. He entered the All-Star break averaging 13.2 points on 67.5% shooting and a team-high 8.5 rebounds per game.

MILAN — It happens every Winter Olympics, the curling renaissance. For two-plus weeks in February, Americans south of Canadian border states remember that curling exists. Riding a wave of patriotic fever and a strong belief that they too could be Olympic-level curlers, Americans fall in love with the sport … right up until the torch goes out.

This year, curling aficionados are planning to keep the love going. Shortly after the Olympics wrap up in late February, the Rock League will launch. A collection of 60 of the world’s greatest curlers, complete with team names, the Rock League hopes to harness the expected momentum from Milan Cortina.

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The new league might just revolutionize and professionalize curling as a sport. At the very least, it’ll be a fun watch with a couple beers close at hand. Win-win either way, right?

“It’s going to be a massive undertaking,” says John Shuster, the gold medal-winning skip of Team USA’s landmark 2018 squad, “but every single player I’ve talked to is really excited to see where this is going to go.”

Where do you find curling after the Olympics?

“If you’re an American and you love watching curling every four years, but then there’s nothing to engage with after, well,” says Nic Sulsky, CEO of The Curling Group, “you’re gonna forget about the sport.”

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Sulsky came to curling from the gaming industry to co-found The Curling Group, which owns the Rock League. He calls the Winter Olympics curling’s “lightning-hitting-the-clock-tower moment” — referencing, of course, the instant in “Back to the Future” when a massive plan all comes together — and understands it presents a rare opportunity for national attention on a niche sport.

“We know that the whole world’s gonna fall in love with curling like they do every four years,” he says. The question he and other investors in The Curling Group asked is, what’s the followup? How can curling harness and sustain the nationwide momentum it gathers every Olympics?

Curling does, in fact, exist outside the Olympics, of course. The Grand Slam of Curling, for instance, which draws more than one team per country, features more talent top-to-bottom than the Olympics. That intrigued Sulsky enough that he and The Curling Group bought The Grand Slam of Curling, which hosts events throughout the year, from its Canadian media ownership. And then he and his advisors, which include former Olympic curling medalists and NFL Hall of Famer Jared Allen, set about creating the Rock League.

“The sport finally needs a platform to professionalize,” Sulsky says. “The players need an opportunity to actually make a little bit more money. Sponsors need a way to integrate into the sport in a more professional way. There needs to be a proper business strategy within the sport of curling.”

The Rock League: Meet the teams

Comprising six teams of 10 curlers apiece, five men and five women per team, including multiple familiar Olympians, the Rock League’s format will look familiar to team-oriented Americans. Each team — Maple United, Shield Curling Club, Frontier Curling Club, Northern United, Alpine Curling Club and Typhoon Curling Club — has its own logo and, eventually, identity. With a range of nationalities represented, each team also boasts an array of athletes for fans to follow, connect with and perhaps even imitate.

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“When I was growing up, it was like, I have this favorite hockey player, I have this favorite basketball player, whatever,” two-time curling Olympian Chris Plys said recently. “There’s kids out there that are 11, 12 years old, but there’s really been no pathway for them to see curling outside of the Olympics and think of that as a viable option for a sport to play. So having a professional league, it’s like, OK, I could do this.”

“Mixing players from countries and teams together is going to be a really refreshing thing for both us as players and for the fans, for sure,” says Shuster, who’s on the roster of the Frontier Curling Club alongside Korey Dropkin, who took sliver in mixed doubles at the Milan Cortina Games.

Sulsky also hopes the Rock League dispels a few of the misperceptions that have built up around curling. “When I walked into the sport, I was expecting old, fat, white guys, right?” he says while laughing. “I see the clips online of people smoking and drinking beer during curling events. I walked in and I was like, Oh my goodness, these are young, fit, attractive men and women who are real athletes.”

But Sulsky and the Rock League don’t just want to change outside perceptions of curling. They want to upend some traditions within the sport, too. At many bonspiels — the curling name for tournaments — the atmosphere is closer to a golf tournament than a football game, with rocks sliding in near-silence and crowds shushing talkers. It’s the traditional form of audience behavior, but some in the curling community believe it’s not the right play going forward.

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“We need energy,” Plys said. “When people are going to spend their hard-earned money, we can’t have these events where people just sit in silence. We’re not going to draw in new fans that way. We need to make it more exciting and have other things going on to bring people in the door.”

The Rock League will begin in April with a one-week “preview season” in Toronto. Then, beginning in January 2027, the Rock League will kick off its touring with a four-week January-February season that includes stops in Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, New York and Ontario. Future seasons could include Europe and other destinations outside the traditional curling footprint.

How to watch The Rock League

No sport can survive in the 2020s without eyeballs, though. Initially, the Rock League will be available on The Rock Channel, a FAST (free, ad-supported television) all-curling channel already up and running.

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“Visibility is what the sport needs to continue to grow,” Plys said. “The reason that it grows so much during the Olympics is because people in every household finally have access to watching it.”

“The reality is, a sports fan needs to be able to engage with content, or what’s the point?” Sulsky says. “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound? You can have the greatest sport there is. If people can’t watch it, what’s the point?”

Plus, the Rock League will take into account the fact that U.S. audiences tend to be a little less familiar with curling nuance than, say, Canadian ones. A tip here, a secret there, a storyline or two laid out, and all of a sudden the world of curling opens up to viewers.

“We’re seeing the differences when you actually get full games in front of audiences with the right commentators,” Shuster says, invoking names like Tom Brady, Tony Romo and Greg Olsen in the NFL. “Getting people that are smart in the booth to bridge the gap between someone who’s never watched curling, or maybe watches it once every four years, to get them really going along with the game.”

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Future plans for the league include everything from sponsorship alignment to social media storytelling to betting opportunities. “It’s going to be different enough, and exciting,” Shuster says. “Nic and The Curling Group are really working hard, trying to make this not be a novelty.”

The Rock League’s first stones slide in April. Until then, keep telling yourself you could do it just as well as them.

Ski Mountaineering, or SkiMo for short, is a brand-new event at the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, and the only sport making its debut at this year’s Games. The sport combines elements of Alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, uphill skiing (also known as skinning), and boot packing all into a single race with courses consisting of an ascent, descent, and a foot section. This year at the Olympics, there will be a men’s and women’s sprint event, and a mixed relay event. Representing Team USA this year in ski mountaineering are Anna Gibson and Cam Smith (and if you want to learn more about the sport and the two Team USA athletes, there’s some great info here).

Here’s a complete schedule of all Team USA SkiMo events at this year’s games. While every event will stream on Peacock, you can also find all of them broadcast on USA, too. (To see specific air times, check out the official NBC Olympics broadcast schedule, and toggle your search to “TV Only.”).

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If you want to learn even more about every event at this year’s Winter Games, here’s a guide to everything you need to know about the Milan Cortina Games.

How to watch Ski Mountaineering at the 2026 Winter Olympics

Dates: Feb. 8 – 21

Location: Stelvio Ski Center, Bormio, Italy

TV channels: USA

Streaming: Peacock, DirecTV, and more

Where can I stream SkiMo at the 2026 Winter Olympics?

Where to watch Ski Mountaineering on TV:

Team USA men’s and women’s SkiMo coverage will be broadcast on USA. (To see specific air times, check out the official NBC Olympics broadcast schedule, and toggle your search to “TV Only.”). You can stream USA on DirecTV, Hulu + Live TV and more.

MILAN — Last Wednesday night, shortly after 1 a.m., Jordan Stolz’s coach went to speak with the speedskating superstar.

Bob Corby found Stolz in the Olympic Village, still cradling the gold medal that he had secured earlier that evening by winning his first of four races on the sport’s biggest stage.

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“Oh, you got a little trophy there?” the 75-year-old Corby quipped. “What did you do? Did you win a little tee ball tournament?”

Stolz grinned before gesturing toward his medal and saying, “I’ve been thinking about this for a long time.”

At first glance, Stolz and Corby might appear to be these Olympics’ most mismatched pairing — an unflappable 21-year-old speedskating phenom and the feisty white-haired grandfather who he lured out of retirement. And yet speedskating’s odd couple have brought out the best in each other during their seven years working together.

Stolz has flourished under Corby’s old-school training methods, establishing himself as the planet’s most dominant speedskater with a real chance to add two more Olympic gold medals to the two he has already won in Milan. And Corby has reveled in helping a star pupil seize his moment in the spotlight more than four decades after an Olympic coaching flop that haunts him to this day.

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The only speedskater ever to win five gold medals at the same Olympics endorsed Corby as the ideal coach to help Stolz chase greatness. Eric Heiden used to train with Corby and to this day refers to him as “the Skate Whisperer.”

“He doesn’t let his ego get in the way of letting Jordan do his thing,” Heiden said. “He knows when to offer advice and coach and then understands when to let Jordan’s innate talent take over.”

Leaving Sarajevo empty handed

Decades ago, Corby himself once had aspirations of competing at an Olympics in speedskating. He trained relentlessly for the 1972 and 1976 Winter Games, experimenting with yoga, nutrition and an array of different drills and exercises in an effort to shave just a few tenths of a second off his best times.

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It wasn’t enough. There were always world-class American skaters who were faster than Corby at every distance. But those experiences helped Corby as a coach when he started working for the Madison Speedskating Club and for the U.S. International Speedskating Association while also studying physical therapy at the University of Wisconsin.

One year after Heiden swept all five men’s speedskating races at the 1980 Winter Games in Lake Placid, the USISA tasked Corby with the job of helping prepare American speedskaters for the 1984 Olympics in Sarajevo. He inherited a young, inexperienced group since Heiden and many other top Americans had chosen to hang up their skates.

The buildup to the Sarajevo Games was marred by infighting over staff shortages, fundraising failures, training sites and coaching methods. Reports from the time period describe a schism between speedskaters who supported Corby and those who backed other USISA coaches.

The results once those Olympics started were also deflating. The Soviets and East Germans dominated. The Americans came home empty-handed. At 18 years old, Dan Jansen took fourth in the men’s 500. Twenty-year-old Nick Thometz finished one spot behind Jansen in the 500 and a hard-luck fourth in the 1,000. Bonnie Blair, then 19, cracked the top 10 in the women’s 500. But there were no American medalists, not even a paltry bronze.

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“It was very disappointing,” Corby said. “You knew that they were just teenagers skating against 25- and 26-year-olds with more years of training, but it still was disappointing to go through the whole thing with them and not get a medal somewhere. I spent a long time afterward trying to analyze if I could have done anything to change things, to make it a little better.”

Corby stepped away from the national team after 1984 but continued to coach speedskaters into the late 1980s. Then he gradually disappeared from the sport altogether as his physical therapy practice began getting busier and his kids showed a preference for soccer and skiing rather than speedskating.

The first time that Corby met Stolz, he had no intention of coaching him. Speedskating coach Bobby Fenn, a longtime close friend of Corby’s, invited him to come watch a short-track meet in Madison nearly a decade ago. When they arrived, Fenn pointed to a rail-thin 12-year-old boy who he coached and told Corby, “Watch this kid. He’s pretty good.”

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Corby, too, recognized Stolz had potential after watching him skate. He met Stolz and his parents that day through Fenn. He stayed in touch sporadically, even providing physical therapy to the young skater after he suffered a hip flexor.

By then, Stolz’s speedskating ambitions had outgrown the backyard pond where he and older sister Hannah famously learned to skate. Stolz’s parents took him and Hannah to Milwaukee a few times a week to work with Fenn, a world-class coach best known for developing Shani Davis into an Olympic and world all-around champion.

Then on Oct. 8, 2017, Fenn didn’t show up to the rink for a scheduled practice session. Later that day, the Stolz family learned the 73-year-old had passed away suddenly, the cause of death reportedly a heart attack. 

Fenn’s death was very hard on both her children, Jane Stolz said. Hannah gradually retreated from speedskating, preferring to focus on her passion for raising exotic birds and doing taxidermy. Jordan also drifted. Davis filled in for Fenn for a little while, but when he accepted an opportunity to coach junior skaters in China, Jordan was coachless again.

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While Corby had occasionally offered guidance and support during this time period, Jordan needed more than that. He asked Corby if he’d be willing to return to the speedskating world for the first time in more than two decades to coach him full-time.

The timing, as Corby puts it, was “serendipitous” with him preparing to step back from his physical therapy practice. Plus, Corby says, “How on earth do you say no to a 14-year-old kid who calls you and asks you for help?”

Turning a scrawny kid into a powerhouse

Armed with pages of handwritten notes about which training techniques he’d keep from the buildup to the 1984 Olympics and which he’d scrap, Corby tailored a plan specifically for Stolz. Stolz spends much of his summer on his bicycle, building leg strength and aerobic capacity. He powers through draining sets of heavy squats, explosive jumps and single-leg workouts. He also hones his technique away from the ice, imitating his stride on a slide board or using cables as a resistance tool to simulate cornering on ice.

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The emphasis on weight training helped Stolz evolve from a talented but scrawny kid into a powerhouse. By the time speedskating began to emerge from the COVID pandemic, Jordan didn’t just stand out among skaters his own age anymore. The 16-year-old took on the fastest men in America and beat them, clocking a national junior record time of 34.99 seconds in the men’s 500 at the 2021 U.S. Speedskating Championships.

“I remember thinking, ‘Holy cow,’” Corby said. “This kid really has some talent.”

The holy cow moments didn’t stop there.

At 17, Stolz won both the men’s 500 and 1,000 at the U.S. Olympic Trials, qualifying him to participate in the Winter Games in both events.

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At 18, he swept the gold medals in the 500, 1,000 and 1,500 at world championships.

At 19, he did it again.

Now Stolz is trying to top all of those feats at these Winter Games. He’s halfway to four gold medals, having already set a pair of Olympic records while outdueling Dutch sprinter Jenning de Boo to win the 1,000 and the 500. He’ll be a heavy favorite to win his third gold medal on Thursday in the 1,500, a distance he has dominated on the World Cup circuit. Then there’s the race that Stolz refers to as “a bonus,” the chaotic, unpredictable mass start.

When asked why the partnership between he and Stolz has turned out so well, Corby said that Stolz responds well to being pushed — especially when the results show that the training programs are working.

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“He can handle a pretty big workload,” Corby said. “He saw a real benefit to doing these types of workouts.”

Spend even a few minutes at the speedskating arena in Milan on one of Stolz’s race days, and the bond between him and Corby is obvious. Corby is the last person Stolz speaks with before a race and the first person he high fives after he crosses the finish line.

“This experience has been great,” Corby said with a laugh, “It doesn’t seem to bother him having a white-haired guy hanging around.”

LIVIGNO, Italy — He had to wait an agonizingly long time, but the bronze medal in men’s snowboard slopestyle is Jake Canter’s.

After stomping his final run for a score of 79.36 to put him third on the leaderboard, Canter had to wait for the rest of the field to finish to see if his score would hold up. Things got tense when Norway’s Marcus Kleveland, the second-to-last rider, crushed his own final run. The judges took an extraordinarily long time to post Kleveland’s score, leaving an anxious Canter waiting to see if he’d be knocked off the podium.

When Kleveland’s score came in at 78.96, Canter breathed a huge sigh of relief. Moments later, when New Zealand’s Dane Menzies crashed on his run, it was celebration time for Canter.

It’s the first Olympic medal for the 22 year old Coloradan, who won the Aspen World Cup in January to secure his place on Team USA.

China’s star snowboarded Su Yiming won his second career Olympic gold (big air, 2022) while Japan’s Taiga Hasegawa took silver.

Red Gerard, the 2018 gold medalist, finished sixth while 17-year old Ollie Martin finished ninth for Team USA.

Team USA has been heavily favored to medal in the men’s and women’s ice hockey competition at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics. The women’s team is guaranteed a medal; they’re playing in the gold medal game this Thursday against Canada (marking the seventh time in history that the two clubs have met in the gold medal clash). The men’s team is just entering the playoff round and they’ll play their quarterfinal against Sweden on Feb. 18 at 3:10 p.m. ET. The men’s gold medal final is scheduled for the very last day of the Games, on Sunday, Feb. 22.

Read on for a complete schedule of every U.S. men’s and women’s hockey game at this year’s games, a rundown of who is playing for Team USA, and how to watch all the action. And if you want to learn even more about every event at this year’s Winter Games, here’s a guide to everything you need to know about the Milan Cortina Games.

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How to watch Team USA ice hockey at the 2026 Winter Olympics

Dates: Now through Feb. 22

Location: Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena

TV channel: USA, NBC, CNBC

Streaming: Peacock, DirecTV, and more

Where can I stream ice hockey at the 2026 Winter Olympics?

Every men’s and women’s ice hockey game at the Olympics, including the women’s gold medal final this Thursday, is available to stream on Peacock.