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Illustration by Matthew Billington; Source Images: Dandjinou: Graham Hughes/CP; Howden: Jeff McIntosh/CP; Homan: Darren Calabrese/CP; Kingsbury: Robert F. Bukaty/AP Photo; McMorris: Michael Reaves/Getty Images; Poulin: Elsa/Getty Images; Crawford: Gabriele Facciotti/AP Photo; Blondin: Sue Ogrocki /AP Photo; Dudek: Issei Kato/REUTERS; McDavid: Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images; Mountain: Maja Hitij/Getty Images
Canada’s athletes are on their way to Italy for the Milan Cortina Winter Games. Over the last 12 months we’ve gotten a taste of what national sport can feel like in this post-rules-based international order, with last year’s 4 Nations Face-Off and with the Blue Jays’ nationally galvanizing playoff run. In Italy, up against the world, Canadians will want to see their country stand tall and represent itself well.
Here are 10 Canadian athletes to watch at an Olympic Games where hearing O Canada play will carry more weight than it has in a long time.
Connor McDavid, hockey
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Edmonton Oilers’ Connor McDavid waits to take a faceoff against the Vancouver Canucks on Jan. 17.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
McDavid enters his first Olympics in his prime and is seen as the best hockey player in the world. Expectations would have been high for the Edmonton Oilers superstar even if the 4 Nations Face-Off hadn’t happened last year.
Of course it did happen and McDavid came through with a career-defining, series-winning goal that was equal parts Sidney Crosby in the 2010 Games and Paul Henderson at the Summit Series in 1972. Is it fair to put the same weight-of-the-world expectations on the 29-year-old in Milan Cortina? Of course not. They’re there though, all the same.
Ivanie Blondin, speed skating
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Ivanie Blondin celebrates winning the women’s mass start competition at the ISU World Cup speedskating event in Calgary, Alta., last November.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
Heading into her fourth Olympics, Blondin is in pursuit of her third medal, after a successful stay in a challenging COVID-affected Beijing Games four years ago. Blondin was part of the gold medal-winning team pursuit (along with Valérie Maltais and Isabelle Weidemann) then won a silver medal in the mass start.
The 35-year-old from Ottawa comes into these Games with good momentum, winning four medals (two gold, two bronze) at the 2025 ISU Four Continents Championships and three medals (two silvers, one bronze) at the 2025 ISU World Single Distances Championships.
Jack Crawford, alpine skiing
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James Crawford reacts after his run at the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup in Kitzbuehel, Austria, on Jan. 23.Leonhard Foeger/Reuters
Crawford, 28, won the lone Olympic medal of his career at the 2022 Games, with a bronze in the men’s alpine combined. The win brought Canada its first medal in any alpine skiing combined event.
Crawford has only improved over the last four years. He raced to gold in the super-G at the 2023 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships, part of a fifth-place overall finish in the FIS World Cup downhill standings. A second-place finish that year at Bormio – the feared and revered slope at this year’s Games – should have an already confident and creative skier feeling at home as he takes aim at a gold medal.
Mikaël Kingsbury, freestyle skiing
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Canadian freestyle mogul skier Mikaël Kingsbury takes part in a press conference before the freestyle skiing World Cup moguls in Saint-Come, Que., on Jan. 8.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Kingsbury’s is a face that you’ll see early – he, along with Marielle Thompson, were named Canada’s flag-bearers for the Olympic opening ceremonies – and often, as he is mogul skiing’s most accomplished competitor. The Deux-Montagnes, Que., resident picked up his 100th career World Cup win earlier this month at a FIS competition in Val St-Come, Que.
The win came at a good time, as Kingsbury withdrew from the 2025-26 season-opening event due to a groin injury. If he’s fully healthy or close to it, Kingsbury is one of Canada’s medal favourites. He won his first gold medal in moguls in 2018 in Pyeongchang and took silvers in 2022 in Beijing and 2014 in Sochi.
Rachel Homan, curling
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Rachel Homan delivers a stone during the Montana’s Canadian Curling Trials in Halifax last November.Darren Calabrese/The Canadian Press
Every Canadian curler at these games will have the No. 12 looming over them. Homan, taking part in her third Olympics, would love to be a part of the team that ends Canada’s 12-year Olympic gold-medal drought. As Homan gets settled into Cortina, she’s also chasing the one bit of curling hardware that’s eluded her.
A three-time world champion, the 2024 winner of the Pan Continental Curling Championships, a five-time winner of the Scotties Tournament of Hearts and a winner of 20 Grand Slam of Curling titles – the most by any skip, male or female – Homan is already one of curling’s greats. An Olympic gold medal could sit front and centre on a mantle that’s bending under the weight of her success.
Deanna Stellato-Dudek, figure skating
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American-Canadian pairs figure skater Deanna Steallo-Dudek during practice in Sainte-Julie, Que., last September.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
Stellato-Dudek and her partner, Maxime Deschamps, make for one of the most interesting Team Canada stories at these Games. Stellato-Dudek retired from singles competition in 2000, while competing for the U.S., after injuries had piled up for her. Sixteen years later, inspired by a question at a business retreat that asked what you would do if you could not fail, she went back to figure skating and partnered with Deschamps in 2019. Their chemistry was quickly evident.
When she and Deschamps won gold at the 2024 ISU World Figure Skating Championships, at 40 she became the oldest woman of any figure skating discipline to ever win a world championship. Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps will try to get the Hollywood-style result at these Games.
Marie-Philip Poulin, hockey
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Team Canada hockey player Marie-Philip Poulin speaks to reporters at Trudeau Airport in Montreal on Thursday, prior to departing for the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics.Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press
Captain Clutch is back for an incredible fifth Olympic Games, with Canada looking to defend the gold medal it won in women’s hockey in 2022. Poulin is no stranger to gold, having collected three of them in her four Olympic experiences. Living up to her nickname, she had the game-winner in the 2022 final against the Americans, following up on the game-winners she netted in 2014 and 2010 finals.
A four-time gold medalist for Canada at the IIHF women’s world championship, Poulin is a key reason why Canada has seen so much success in the women’s game over the last 16 years. At 34, this could be her final Olympics. Up against an American team that dominated Canada in four exhibitions late in 2025, Poulin faces a difficult task as she sizes up a fourth gold medal.
Mark McMorris, snowboarding
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Gold medalist Mark McMorris looks on after competing in the Men’s Snowboard Slopestyle on day three of the X Games Aspen 2026 in Colorado this month.Michael Reaves/Getty Images
The Regina product heads to his fourth Olympic Games, hoping to add to the trio of bronze medals he’s accumulated in the slopestyle event. A 25-time medalist at the X Games – including a gold medal in slopestyle just this week – McMorris shows a fearlessness that comes with its share of consequences.
He has sacrificed his body in pursuit of snowboarding greatness. Between 2014 and 2017 he broke a rib and his right femur, fractured his jaw, his left arm, pelvis and ribs, while suffering a ruptured spleen and punctured lung. The 32-year-old has put in the work and paid a cost for his greatness. He’s more than deserving of being rewarded for it in Livigno.
Will Dandjinou, speed skating
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Short-track speedskater William Dandjinou attends the unveiling of the Canadian short track team for the Milan Cortina Olympics, in Montreal last month.Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press
The 24-year-old Dandjinou makes his Olympic debut in Milan Cortina, but he won’t be taking his competition by surprise. Over the last two seasons, the Montreal native has won a pair of Crystal Globes on the ISU Short Track World Tour, as the top-ranked skater. He won gold in the ISU World Championships last year in the 1,500-metre, the 5,000-metre relay and the mixed relay.
Having just missed out on making Canada’s Olympic team in 2022, Dandjinou will be full of confidence and motivation when he gets on the ice in Milan.
Reece Howden, freestyle skiing
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Reece Howden of Canada celebrates during the podium ceremony for the men’s ski cross event at the FIS Ski Cross World Cup, in Veysonnaz, Switzerland, last week.Cyril Zingaro/The Associated Press
The all-time leader in World Cup victories in men’s ski cross, with 22, Howden is hoping to transfer some of that World Cup success into his second Olympic appearance. In 2022, he made it to the quarter-finals and placed ninth in men’s ski cross. After picking up his 22nd World Cup win last week, the 27-year-old told the CBC that he wasn’t holding anything back in the lead-up to the Games.
A three-time Crystal Globe winner (2021, 2023, 2025), Howden heads into the Games on a roll. He won’t find the stage too big, or the spotlight at the end of the run too bright for him.
