Beijing Winter Olympics: Canadian women’s hockey team ready to face off against U.S. in gold-medal game

Beijing Olympics: Latest updates

Olympic events for Feb. 15, 2022

• What to watch Wednesday in Olympic action: Starting at 8:30 a.m. ET, the Canadian men’s hockey team takes on Sweden in the quarter-finals. And, the much-anticipated women’s hockey gold-medal game between Canada and the United States is scheduled for 11:10 p.m. ET Wednesday. This will be the sixth time, out of seven opportunities, that Canada and the U.S. have met in the women’s gold-medal game. Also Wednesday, keep your eye out for the Canadian speed skaters; at 7:44 a.m. ET, the men’s short track relay team is competing in the finals.
• Women’s curling: Canada’s Jennifer Jones improved her playoff chances at the Beijing Games on Wednesday by edging American Tabitha Peterson 7-6. Canada was scheduled to play China before closing out round-robin play Thursday against Denmark’s Madeleine Dupont. The top four teams in the 10-team field will advance.
• Freestyle Skiing: Twenty-three year old Max Moffatt earned a score of 70.40 in the third run – bumping him to ninth place in the men’s freeski slopestyle at the Beijing Olympics. Moffatt is Canada’s lone qualifier for the men’s freestyle ski slopestyle final. The winter X Games slopestyle runner up from Guelph, Ont., finished 11th with 74.06 points in the qualifying round. Alexander Hall of the U.S. earned the gold medal, Nicholas Goepper, also of the U.S., took home silver, and Sweden’s Jesper Tjäder finished in third place.
• Speed skate: Canadian speed skaters Isabelle Weidemann, Ivanie Blondin and Valerie Maltais seized Olympic gold in the team pursuit after beating Japan in a dramatic final at the Beijing Olympics on Tuesday. Canada’s trio was closing in on the Japanese team in the final stretch of a tight final race, when Japan’s Nana Takagi lost balance and fell, crashing into the padded barrier. The Canadians crossed the finish line in an Olympic record time of two minutes and 53.44 seconds, The Globe’s Rachel Brady reports from Beijing. The medal was Weidemann’s third of the Games. Canada did not qualify for the semifinals in men’s team pursuit. Norway beat Russia for gold and the United States took the bronze. Toronto’s Jordan Belchos, Calgary’s Ted-Jan Bloemen and Winnipeg’s Tyson Langelaar beat South Korea in the C final to finish fifth overall.
• Snowboard: Canada’s Max Parrot won the bronze medal in men’s big air at the Beijing Olympics barely a week after winning gold in slopestyle. The 27-year-old from Bromont, Que., fell on his first jump, but landed a huge cab 1800 on his second attempt. His 1620 on his third jump was enough to get him on the medal podium. Parrot won slopestyle on Feb. 7, three years to the day since he began 12 rounds of chemotherapy to treat Hodgkin lymphoma. Regina’s Mark McMorris was 10th on Tuesday, while Vancouver’s Darcy Sharpe was 12th. The Globe’s Cathal Kelly writes Tuesday that If the Olympics has a bright future, big air is part of it.
• Figure skating: Canada’s Madeline Schizas, who made an impressive debut last week in the figure skating team event, was unable to duplicate her clean skate and ended with a 60.53 in the women’s short program. The result left her sitting at 20 by the end of the event but will qualify her for the free skate. Meanwhile, Russia’s Kamila Valieva moved into first place after her short program, earning a score of 82.16 - below her 90.45 world-record performance from last month’s European championships. Valieva was cleared to compete Monday by the Court of Arbitration for Sport following a hearing into a positive drug test that surfaced the previous week. Writing on the controversy, The Globe’s Cathal Kelly asks why we continue to put children in a position where this can happen to them?
• Curling: Canada’s men’s curling team picked up a nervy 10-8 win over China on Tuesday before but falling 7-6 to Russia to in extra ends. That loss dropped Canada to 5-3, while the Russians improved to 4-4. Only the top four teams at the end of the round robin qualify for the semifinals. Gushue will need a win over Great Britain on Wednesday, his final game of the round robin, to assure Canada advances to the medal round.
• Ice hockey: Adam Tambellini had two goals, including one on a penalty shot, to go along with three assists as Canada survived an early scare Tuesday to beat China 7-2 in the qualification round of the men’s hockey tournament. Jordan Weal, with two goals and an assist; Eric Staal and Jack McBain, with a goal and an assist each; and Eric O’Dell provided the rest of the offence for the Canadians, who got 27 saves from Matt Tomkins. Canada will now take on Sweden in the quarterfinals. Earlier Tuesday, Switzerland beat the Czech Republic 4-2 in the qualification round for the quarterfinals while Slovakia claimed at 4-0 victory over Germany.
• Biathlon: In the men’s 4x7.5-kilometre biathlon relay, Canada finished sixth for its best-ever result in the event. Scott Gow, Christian Gow and Adam Runnalls, all from Calgary, and Jules Burnotte of Sherbrooke, Que., finished one minute 56.3 seconds behind gold medallist Norway.
• Alpine Skiing: In the women’s downhill, Marie-Michele Gagnon of Lac-Etchemin, Que., placed eighth and Roni Remme of Collingwood, Ont., was 24th. Switzerland’s Corinne Suter won gold in 1:31.87, ahead of a pair of Italian skiers. Sofia Goggia finish in 1:32.03 for silver and Nadia Delago took bronze with a time of 1:32.44.

Off the field

• Valieva claims positive test was mix-up: Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva has argued that her positive drug test was caused by a mix-up with her grandfather’s heart medication, an Olympic official said on Tuesday.
• Why do we think it’s sane that Valieva finds herself in this position? Just as 15-year-old figure skater Kamila Valieva was back on the practice rink Tuesday, Cathal Kelly asked: Why are we alternately fighting over her, laughing at her and berating her like she is a 30 year old who just committed a particularly galling fraud?

The day in pictures

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Coming up at the Beijing Olympics

All dates and times (ET)

What to watch tomorrow, Feb. 16

• Biathlon: women’s 4x6km relay 🥇 2:45 a.m. ET
• Ice hockey: Men’s quarterfinal, 3:40 a.m. ET
• Ice hockey: Women’s bronze medal game, Finland vs. Switzerland, 🥇 6:30 a.m. ET
• Short track: Women’s 1500m quarterfinal 6:30 a.m. ET
• Curling: Women round robin, Canada vs China 7:05 a.m. ET
• Short track: men’s 5000m relay 🥇 7:32 a.m. ET
• Curling: Men’s round robin, Canada vs Great Britain 8:05 p.m. ET
• Ice hockey: women’s gold medal game, Canada vs U.S. 🥇 11:10 p.m. ET

What time is it in Beijing right now?

Olympic highlights and medal count for Feb. 15

Latest Olympic medal count

Canadian women’s hockey team to put high-powered offence to the test in showdown with U.S. for Olympic gold: Another chapter in a decades-long duel is about to be written in Beijing. Canada and the United States clashing for Olympic women’s hockey gold Thursday (11:10 p.m. ET Wednesday) may have been expected. Nothing is predictable when women from the two countries step on the ice with sticks in their hands.

U.S. curling skip Tabitha Peterson grapples with a tricky Olympic injury – a lost voice: Tabitha Peterson is fighting a tricky and troublesome injury as she tries to guide the U.S. women’s curling team to the Olympic medal round. The American skip is losing her voice – no small problem when a big part of your job is shouting instructions to your teammates at the other end of the 146-foot (44.5-metre) sheet of ice.

These Olympics have visual oomph, not much else: The Globe’s John Doyle writes: As I write this, I’m recovering from watching the monobob at the Olympics. Phew. You can have your Super Bowl and your halftime show with the L.A. hip-hop routine. If you want eye-popping visuals and your nerves jangled, it’s happening at the Beijing Olympics, as seen on TV. As a sport, the monobob has what looks like a lethal modus operandi: a smooth and efficient way to seriously hurt yourself. The inaugural women-only competition was extraordinary to watch.

Swiss skier Mathilde Gremaud secures gold in slopestyle as China’s Eileen Gu comes from behind for silver: No one can accuse Eileen Gu of lacking a sense of drama. The Chinese skier came from behind to win gold in the big air last week, and seemed like she might do it again Monday night in the women’s slopestyle event. After making it through a “scary” qualifier, Gu was looking shaky in her first two runs, with a top score of only 69.90, well out of medal contention. But she delivered, once again, when it counts: putting down a massive final run for a score of 86.23, The Globe’s James Griffiths reports.

After three months apart from their home in Canada, two engaged Olympians share a brief moment together in Beijing: Blayre Turnbull walked into the opening ceremony at the Beijing Winter Olympics with her lively hockey squad. Ryan Sommer arrived with the guys from his four-man bobsleigh crew. Both were dedicated to sharing that distinct Olympic moment with their teammates, but Turnbull and Sommer were also scanning the crowd for one another. The Canadian hockey player and the bobsleigh brakeman are engaged, but because of conflicting travel schedules and various COVID-related bubbles, the couple had been apart for three months, The Globe’s Rachel Brady reports.

Essential reads on the Beijing Olympics

Sports columnist Cathal Kelly

The Kamila Valieva scandal shows the minimum age to compete in the Olympics needs to be raised

Big air a big part of any bright future the Olympics may have

Decision to let Kamila Valieva continue competing in Beijing is yet another doping joke in a long-running farce

A midnight hustle: What it was like arriving in Beijing ahead of the Olympics

Canadian bobsledder Christine de Bruin wins bronze in monobob, Kaillie Humphries of U.S. takes gold. Now we can finally stop talking about it

There hasn’t been a fun Olympics for a decade, but at least Beijing is honest about what we’re getting instead

Washington’s diplomatic boycott is worse than meaningless

On the politics

Beijing’s Olympic plans are mired in politics and threatened by COVID-19. Will it all be worth it?

As world’s media descend on Beijing for Winter Olympics, journalists in China warn of unprecedented hurdles

Megan Walsh: The Olympics as metaphor for how the Chinese Communist Party writes its narratives

On Team Canada

Catriona Le May Doan is living the chef de mission dream

Ski cross team is ready for anything as they fight for a place at the Games

NHL veteran Eric Staal leads Canada’s hockey team into Beijing Olympics