Author: rb809rb

The NHL is back at the Olympics for the first time since 2014 and the United States men’s team is a strong contender for its first gold medal since the “Miracle on Ice.”

As part of a joint agreement between the NHL, NHL Players Association, the International Ice Hockey Federation and the International Olympic Committee announced last February, the league’s biggest stars will take part in the 2026 Milan Cortina Games over the next two weeks.

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Since the “Miracle” gold at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics, the U.S. men have reached the gold medal game twice — 2002, 2010 — but lost both times to Canada. Outside of those two silver medals, they have not placed better than fourth in the tournament. The quarterfinals is where the U.S. has seen their Olympic dreams come to an end in the past two Olympics, both without NHL players.

Now that the Olympic tournament is back to being best-on-best, the American men are looking to build off years of international development and secure gold.

Who is on Team USA?

The U.S. men’s Olympic hockey roster was revealed in early January and there were few changes from the team that lost to Canada in last year’s 4 Nations Face-Off final. Tage Thompson, Clayton Keller and Seth Jones replace Chris Kreider and Adam Fox on the team in Milan

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U.S. general manager Bill Guerin told reports after the roster announcement that chemistry was a big factor in the decision made to run back mostly the same team from the 4 Nations Face-Off. There were criticisms about the absences of Jason Robertson, Cole Caufield and Alex DeBrincat, three of the NHL’s top-eight goal scorers, but there was also a desire to include certain players with specific skillsets to fill roles to make it less of an All-Star team and more of a complete team.

“I liked the way we played. Everybody was together, everybody played the right way,” Guerin said. “The biggest thing for me was the chemistry, and I think the chemistry allowed the guys to play the way that they did.”

Team USA roster

Forwards

Matt Boldy, Minnesota Wild
Kyle Connor, Winnipeg Jets
Jack Eichel, Vegas Golden Knights
Jake Guentzel, Tampa Bay Lightning
Jack Hughes, New Jersey Devils
Clayton Keller, Utah Mammoth
Dylan Larkin, Detroit Red Wings
Auston Matthews, Toronto Maple Leafs
J.T. Miller, New York Rangers
Brock Nelson, Colorado Avalanche
Tage Thompson, Buffalo Sabres
Brady Tkachuk, Ottawa Senators
Matthew Tkachuk, Florida Panthers
Vincent Trocheck, New York Rangers

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Defensemen

Brock Faber, Minnesota Wild
Noah Hanifin, Vegas Golden Knights
Quinn Hughes, Minnesota Wild
Jackson LaCombe, Anaheim Ducks (replacing Seth Jones)
Charlie McAvoy, Boston Bruins
Jake Sanderson, Ottawa Senators
Jaccob Slavin, Carolina Hurricanes
Zach Werenski, Columbus Blue Jackets

Goaltenders

Connor Hellebuyck, Winnipeg Jets
Jake Oettinger, Dallas Stars
Jeremy Swayman, Boston Bruins

Head coach: Mike Sullivan, New York Rangers
Assistant coaches: John Hynes (Minnesota Wild), David Quinn (New York Rangers), John Tortorella

Milan storylines

Best American roster yet? Canada has dominated Olympic men’s hockey since the NHL begin sending players in 1998. The U.S. has lost both times they were close to gold, both times to Canada. But there’s a belief that this is the best American team that’s been put together, and despite falling at last year’s 4 Nations Face-Off in overtime, the expectation of gold is not a far-fetched idea.

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Strength between the pipes. Goaltending will again be the biggest strength for the U.S. Connor Hellebuyck is a three-time Vezina Trophy winner as the league’s best goalie and was the Hart Trophy winner as league MVP last season. He posted a 1.59 goals against average and a .932 save percentage at 4 Nations and could very well end up having to outduel Jordan Binnington in a final. Binnington wasn’t a solid as Hellebuyck, but he did enough to help Canada win the tournament.

No injury concerns. Defenseman Charlie McAvoy, who broke his jaw earlier this season, was wearing extra protection for his face after getting an elbow to the face from Sandis Vilmanis of the Florida Panthers last week. There was no further damage, only soreness. There is also no concern about the status of Jack Hughes. The New Jersey Devils forward sat out the team’s final three games before the Olympic break with a lower-body injury. He was a full participant in Team USA’s first practice on Sunday and said he feels good.

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Beating Canada. Since the NHL started participating at the Olympics 28 years ago, the U.S. and their northern neighbors have met five times. Four of those meetings have ended in defeat for the Americans, including twice in gold-medal games. Canada’s dominance over the U.S. has also been on display with two wins in two games at the World Cup of Hockey and the win in the 4 Nations Face-off Final. The U.S. will likely see Canada again if their time in Milan is to end with a gold medal.

U.S. men’s Olympic schedule

Group A: Canada, Switzerland, Czechia, France
Group B: Finland, Sweden, Slovakia, Italy
Group C: U.S., Germany, Latvia, Denmark

Thurs., Feb. 12: 5-1 win over Latvia
Sat., Feb. 14: 6-3 win over Denmark
Sun., Feb. 15 : 5-1 win over Germany
Wed., Feb. 18: 2-1 win over Sweden
Fri., Feb. 20: vs. Slovakia – 3:10 p.m. ET (NBC/Peacock)
Sat. Feb. 21: Bronze-medal game – 2:10 p.m. ET (TBD)
Sun., Feb. 22: Gold-medal game – 8:10 a.m. ET (TBD)

Ever since Eileen Gu decided to compete under the flag of China, and not the United States where she was born, her citizenship has been the subject of scrutiny and controversy.

Born in San Francisco, she said her decision to switch allegiance back in 2019 had everything to do with “inspiring” children from the country of her mother at the Olympics in her home country. That would be the 2022 Beijing Games, where Gu won two golds and a silver for China in freestyle skiing.

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She’s since become a millionaire many times over, mainly due to her online presence and endorsements, not her skiing. She was the fourth-highest earning female athlete in 2025, earning upwards of $23 million. According to Sportico, all but $20,000 of that $23 million came from endorsements.

Now, she’s back in the Olympics, still competing for China and, reportedly, being paid handsomely to do so.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Gu and Zhu Yi, a fellow American-born figure skater who now competes for China, were paid a combined $6.6 million by the Beijing Municipal Sports Bureau in 2025 for “striving for excellent results in qualifying for the 2026 Milan Winter Olympics.” In all, the two were reportedly paid nearly $14 million over the past three years.

The payments were revealed when the Beijing Municipal Sports Bureau budget was posted online with the names of Gu and Zhu. Their names have since been scrubbed from the public report.

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Gu already has a silver in slopestyle in Italy, while Zhu — born Beverly Zhu in Los Angeles — is not competing in the 2026 Games.

“Sometimes it feels like I’m carrying the weight of two countries on my shoulders,” Gu said after winning silver in slopestyle. “Just being able to ski through all of that, you know. To still show my best and still be so deeply in love with the sport.

“That’s really what I care about and I’m so happy to represent that today.”

The subject of Gu’s citizenship remains shrouded in mystery. China does not allow dual citizenship, meaning Gu ostensibly had to give up her U.S. passport.

Gu will compete in two more events — women’s halfpipe and big air.

Chris Sale of the Atlanta Braves said he will do his job when it comes to being a starting pitcher and will allow umpires to do their jobs when it comes to calling balls and strikes with the the Automated Ball Strike Challenge System being instituted in MLB this season.

Every team will have two challenges to begin each game. Only batters, catchers and pitchers will be allowed to challenge ball or strike calls and they must signal their intent by tapping their heads immediately after the pitch to initiate the challenge.

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The 36-year-old Sale has thrown over 30,000 pitches in his 15-year career with the Chicago White Sox, Boston Red Sox and Atlanta Braves. What he won’t do for the remainder of his time on the mound is challenge any called ball he believes is a strike.

“I will never challenge a pitch. I will never do it. I won’t do it,” Sale told reporters on Friday. “I’m not an umpire. That’s their job. I’m a starting pitcher. I’ve never called balls and strikes in my life. Plus, I’m greedy, and I know that. I think they’re all strikes.”

Sale added that catchers, like teammates Sean Murphy and Drake Baldwin, are so good at framing pitches that a lot more pitches appear to be strikes than they used to, especially ones on the corner of the plate. The nine-time All-Star and 2024 pitching Triple Crown and Cy Young Award winner said he’ll trust the umpire’s call so as to not risk a challenge that could be used later in the game during an important at-bat.

“I’ve dealt with it before, across all games in my entire career there’s been balls called strikes and strikes called balls and you just deal with it,” Sale said.

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If Murphy or Baldwin disagree, however, that’s a different story.

“If my catcher has something to say about it, I’ll leave that to him,” Sale said. “I’ve dealt with both sides and I’m fine to keep dealing with it.”

Seton Hall outfielder Justin Ford was forced to leave the game after he hit a home run in the fifth inning of his team’s loss to Boston College on Friday night.

Ford suffered a gruesome lower left ankle injury after he rounded first base and was celebrating his home run. As he faced his dugout, his left ankle rolled outward with his foot on the ground and he fell to the dirt.

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(Warning: the video below shows Ford’s injury.)

Ford’s injury was so serious that a stretcher was brought out on the field. A pinch runner was allowed to replace him and score Ford’s run from the homer.

Friday was college baseball’s first day of the season and the two teams were playing in the Puerto Rico Challenge. A junior in 2026, Ford appeared in 17 games as a sophomore with 12 starts. He had a .171 average and his home run against the Eagles was the third of his career.

Boston College won the game 6-4 and will play Houston on Saturday while Seton Hall takes on Manhattan.

Lucas Pinheiro Braathen became the first South American to win a Winter Olympics medal after he earned gold during Saturday’s men’s giant slalom.

The 25-year-old Pinheiro Braathen, who is ranked second in the world in slalom and giant slalom, recorded a combined time of 2:25.00, 0.58 better than 2022 gold medalist Marco Odermatt to win the event.

“I just wanted to share this with everyone watching in Brazil, following me, cheering for me,” Pinheiro Braathen told TV Globo. “This can be a point of inspiration for the next generation of children, showing them that nothing is impossible. It doesn’t matter where you’re from. What matters is what’s inside. What the heart does. I bring Brazilian strength today to bring this flag to the podium. This is Brazil’s.”

Born to a Norwegian father and Brazilian mother, Pinheiro Braathen began his career representing Norway where he won five World Cup slalom and giant slalom races, while making 12 podiums. He competed at the 2022 Beijing Olympics in the slalom and giant slalom, but did not finish either event.

After abruptly retiring in October 2023, Pinheiro Braathen returned to competition five months later representing Brazil. He has one World Cup victory and now made 11 podiums since switching to Brazil ahead of the Milan Cortina Olympics.

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Following his parents’ divorce when he was 3 years old, Pinheiro Braathen lived with his mother in Brazil before moving to Norway to live with his father when he got older.

“I was introduced to sports in the streets of São Paulo, playing with my neighbors, my family, my friends. I fell in love with sports over there,” Pinheiro Braathen said in 2024. “To be able to come full circle and to be able to represent [Brazil] in a World Cup of a sport, it truly means a lot. To be able to bring the dance to the snow is what I’m seeking to do.”

Pinheiro Braathen, who was one of Brazil’s flag bearers for the Opening Ceremony, is now an Olympic history maker and joins previous athletes from his country such as Isadora Williams, who became the first Brazilian and South American in the women’s figure skating final at the 2018 Olympics; five-time Olympic cross-country skier Jaqueline Mourão; and bobsledder Eric Maleson.

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“Norway taught me how to be an athlete, how to brave the cold,” Pinheiro Braathen told reporters last week in Milan. “Brazil taught me how to be myself.”

LIVIGNO, Italy — In the mad rush to find an answer for Friday night’s Malinin Meltdown, blame is already scattering across social media like a virus.

It’s NBC/the media’s fault for making Ilia Malinin the face of the Winter Olympics.

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Or he was tired from the team event.

Or it was the influence of social media and the “Quad God” bit over-inflating his ego.

Or it was his father’s coaching.

Or, as Malinin let slip during an unfiltered moment in the “Kiss and Cry” area awaiting a score he knew would be awful, it was U.S. Figure Skating’s fault for not bringing him to Beijing four years ago so he could taste the Olympic experience and get the nerves out of his system.

Choose your own adventure as to why Malinin went from overwhelming favorite to off the podium entirely in a matter of minutes. Maybe there’s an element of truth in each. Maybe it’s all nonsense.

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But sports exist inside an ecosystem where there’s no way to definitively diagnose why someone who has been the best in the world at their craft reached the Olympic stage and choked. We can come up with all kinds of good theories for why someone that talented and successful reaches the biggest moment of their career and doesn’t perform, but they’re simply theories.

We’re talking about human beings, not machines. Things happen.

And we should be thankful for that. Because even if we can’t fully explain it, seeing failure occasionally is the only way we can know what greatness truly looks like.

Most people who have played sports competitively know what it’s like to choke. Maybe it was a missed free throw that lost the high school conference championship or a 5-foot putt that lipped out with $20 on the line in your weekly golf foursome or falling apart in the finals of your local club’s tennis tournament after serving for the match.

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No matter how big or small the stakes in a larger sense, they’re huge to everyone in those moments. You don’t need months of media coverage or a full stadium to put yourself in those shoes, to have a small sense of what Malinin must have been feeling as he skated onto the ice Friday night.

Pressure does not come from NBC ad campaigns or Instagram comments. It comes from the knowledge of what you’ve invested in yourself and, for any Olympian, the understanding that four years is a very, very long time to wait for another opportunity.

Malinin falling apart is more relatable than anything he can do on the ice. It’s those who mostly seem impervious to the weight of the moment that offer a far more interesting psychological study.

Tiger Woods is probably, to this point, the greatest clutch athlete of my lifetime. He didn’t win every major golf tournament, of course, and he didn’t always come through when put under pressure. Nobody does.

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At so many flashpoints of his career, though, Woods delivered the shot or made the putt that others could not in a sport where choking is pretty common. As much reverence as we had for his achievements and his brilliance, it helped us recognize what a unique athlete he was because we had seen Greg Norman choke away the Masters or Phil Mickelson make one bad decision after another when he got in contention at a U.S. Open.

Their failures provided the context for what’s normal. They helped explain why Woods was one of a kind.

And perhaps four years from now, if Malinin returns and wins gold in France, his own greatness will emerge in the contrast between what he was Friday night and what he’ll become.

But, in the end, this stuff is supposed to be hard. The hype and the media pressure is part of the journey. If none of that existed, you could hold these events at a local park, nobody would notice, sponsors wouldn’t invest money in athletes and nobody would have much incentive to spend their life training to be a part of it.

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That wouldn’t be the Olympics, though. And guess what? Athletes would still choke because they still care. It’s maybe the only part of the human experience of sports most of us can understand.

It’s because the Olympics are so big, so rare and so difficult to win that anybody gets drawn into watching in the first place.

That means every day, you see a dozen people whose lives are changed by winning a gold medal. You see dozens more who leave in devastation. You need both sides of that emotional spectrum to understand why we hold winning on this stage in such high regard.

This collapse is now part of Malinin’s story, but it’s not the end of it unless he wants it to be. The search for a reason may be useful to him when he regroups and looks toward 2030, but it is not necessarily a solution either.

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He choked on Friday for reasons that will be hard to pinpoint, and it absolutely stinks for him, for his fans and for those in his orbit who banked on him winning a gold medal. But in the end, we have to be thankful for all of it.

Because without an occasional failure this epic, it would be hard to know what true greatness really means.

Jimmie Johnson has three races left in his NASCAR Cup Series career.

The seven-time Cup champion said Saturday that the 2027 Daytona 500 would be his final race in NASCAR’s top series. Johnson is competing in this season’s Daytona 500 on Sunday and will also race in the inaugural San Diego road course race this summer.

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Johnson will assuredly get a NASCAR provisional to race in next season’s Daytona 500 again. NASCAR granted Johnson a provisional for the 2026 race under a rule implemented a season ago that gives the sanctioning body the right to add a spot to the starting grid for a notable driver. The rule was put in place as Helio Castroneves, the former IndyCar driver who attempted the 2025 Daytona 500 for the first time.

Sunday’s race will be the 701st Cup Series start of Johnson’s career. He hit No. 700 in the Coca-Cola 600 last May, but crashed out of the race after completing just 111 of 400 laps.

Johnson retired from the Cup Series at the end of the 2020 season but has returned to run part-time schedules in each of the past three seasons as he’s now a co-owner of Legacy Motor Club. The Toyota team is the former Richard Petty Motorsports and fields full-time entries for Erik Jones and John Hunter Nemechek. Legacy is expanding to three full-time cars in 2027, and Johnson will drive a fourth car in the Daytona 500.

Johnson was the dominant driver of the 2000s in the Cup Series. He won five straight championships from 2006 through 2010 before winning titles in 2013 and 2016. Johnson won 35 races during his five-season championship streak and didn’t have fewer than 22 top-10 finishes in any of those five seasons.

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He’s one of three drivers — along with Petty and Dale Earnhardt — to win seven Cup Series titles. Johnson’s 83 Cup Series victories are sixth all-time as he’s tied with Cale Yarborough. Only Petty, David Pearson, Jeff Gordon, Bobby Allison and Darrell Waltrip have more.

Sweden’s chances at a gold medal in the women’s 4×7.5 km relay on Saturday were derailed following a pair of crashes that opened the door for Norway.

The Norwegian team of Kristin Austgulen Fosnæs, Astrid Øyre Slind, Karoline Simpson-Larsen and Heidi Weng finished with a time of 1:15:44.8, 50.9 seconds ahead of the Swedes, who ended up with silver.

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Gold was potentially lost during the second leg when Ebba Andersson crashed twice and was forced to race with one ski for 30 seconds. A ski tech who was hustling to get her a replacement also fell in the slushy snow.

The Norwegians took advantage and went ahead thanks to Slind in Leg 2. That put a lot of work in front of the Swedes with Frida Karlsson beginning 78 seconds behind. She would make up time to keep them in medal contention despite Andersson’s trouble.

“I actually didn’t realize there was so much drama,” Slind said afterward. “They were just ahead of us, but I wasn’t paying much attention. I could see we had a really good gap, so we hoped for the gold already. We are so proud.”

Jonna Sundling anchored for Sweden and ended up passing Finland for silver, finishing over 23 seconds ahead in second place.

The U.S. team, anchored by four-time Olympic medalist Jessie Diggins, finished in fifth place, 1:52.2 behind Norway.

The Super Bowl has come and gone, which means the Daytona 500 is right around the corner. The race will take place Sunday at the Daytona International Speedway in Florida, and Kyle Busch will start from the pole position after earning the top spot in Wednesday’s qualifying.

However, Ryan Blaney is the co- favorite, along with Joey Logano, at 12-1 to win the race at BetMGM sportsbooks, followed by Denny Hamlin and William Byron at 14-1. Busch currently has 18-1 odds. Hamlin has the most wagers (6.9%) and total dollars wagered (9%) of any driver, and is also the biggest liability to win the race at the sportsbook.

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Here are the odds for every driver at the Daytona 500:

Odds to win the Daytona 500

Ryan Blaney, 12-1

Joey Logano, 12-1

Denny Hamlin, 14-1

William Byron, 14-1

Kyle Busch, 16-1

Chase Elliott, 16-1

Austin Cindric, 16-1

Kyle Larson, 18-1

Brad Keselowski, 18-1

Alex Bowman, 20-1

Bubba Wallace, 22-1

Christopher Bell, 22-1

Chase Briscoe, 22-1

Chris Buescher, 22-1

Ryan Preece, 25-1

Ross Chastain, 30-1

Carson Hocevar, 30-1

Corey LaJoie, 30-1

Tyler Reddick, 30-1

Ricky Stenhouse Jr., 35-1

Connor Zilisch, 40-1

Michael McDowell, 40-1

Josh Berry, 40-1

Erik Jones, 40-1

Ty Gibbs, 40-1

Austin Dillon, 50-1

Justin Allgaier, 50-1

Daniel Suarez, 50-1

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AJ Allmendinger, 60-1

Todd Gilliland, 60-1

Corey Heim, 60-1

John Hunter Nemechek, 60-1

Zane Smith, 60-1

Noah Gragson, 60-1

Jimmie Johnson, 80-1

Shane van Gisbergen, 80-1

Cole Custer, 80-1

Ty Dillon, 100-1

Riley Herbst, 100-1

Chandler Smith, 100-1

Cody Ware, 200-1

Anthony Alfredo, 200-1

Casey Mears, 250-1

JJ Yeley, 250-1

BJ McLeod, 250-1

Nick Castellanos is reportedly signing with the San Diego Padres, according to The Athletic’s Dennis Lin.

The 33-year-old Castellanos will serve as the team’s first baseman, designated hitter and play in the outfield.

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Castellanos was available on the free-agent market after being released by the Philadelphia Phillies this week after four seasons with the team. The team told him not to report to spring training this week as he was not in their plans for the 2026 season.

The veteran is owed the $20 million remaining on his $100 million contract, which allows the Padres to sign him for the $780,000 major-league minimum with the Phillies picking up the difference.

The writing had been on the wall all offseason that Castellanos had already played his last game for the Phillies, including when the team signed new right fielder Adolis García. Castellanos earned All-Star honors as recently as 2023, but he was below replacement level in 2025, slashing .250/.294/.400 with the second-worst defense in right field by Baseball Savant’s Fielding Run Value.

“A lot of times when a good player has their role change with the club, it can cause some friction, and his role changed last year from where it was,” said Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski this week. “I mean you played every single day for a lot years in a row, and so sometimes that can contribute to it. Sometimes then people have debates between themselves where they’re not all on the same page. But when you put all that together, sometimes you just need to make sure that you have a change of scenery.”

In a goodbye message to Phillies fans, Castellanos posted a handwritten letter on social media on Thursday. In it, he admitted that he brought a beer into the dugout after being removed from a June game in Miami by manager Rob Thomson with friends and family in attendance.

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Castellanos said that he met with Thomson and Dombrowski afterward and the conversation ended with him apologizing.

That incident led to a one-game benching for Castellanos, who was in the midst of a streak in which he started 236 consecutive games.

Thomson said on Friday he was happy to see Castellanos admit his mistake.

“I’m proud of him because he owned up to what he did and, hey, we all make mistakes,” Thomson said. “Nick had helped us out in a lot of ways here. He’s had some big hits and big plays and helped us win a lot ballgames. So I do, I wish him all the best.”

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Padres also signing pitcher Griffin Canning: Report

In addition to Castellanos, the Padres are also signing pitcher Griffin Canning, Lin reports. The deal is pending a physical exam.

Canning, 29, made 16 starts for the New York Mets last season before rupturing his left Achilles tendon. He finished with a 3.77 ERA and 7-3 record with 70 strikeouts in 76 1/3 innings.

Prior to signing with the Mets as a free agent, Canning pitched five seasons for the Los Angeles Angels. In 99 appearances (94 starts), he compiled a 4.78 ERA with a strikeout rate of 8.4 per nine innings. Canning missed the 2022 season due to a stress fracture in his lower back.