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<\/p>\nThe NHL went to five straight Olympics from 1998 through 2014 before skipping the 2018 event. COVID-19 then squashed plans in 2022, but hockey\u2019s best are finally set for a return to the world stage.<\/p>\n
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Canada won gold in Vancouver in 2010 and climbed the podium a second time four years late in Sochi, Russia.<\/p>\n
Armstrong also led the management group that picked Canada\u2019s entry at last February\u2019s 4 Nations Face-Off when the country topped the United States in a thrilling final.<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay Lightning head coach Jon Cooper will once again be behind the bench after leading the country at the showcase tournament that served as an Olympic appetizer.<\/p>\n
Speaking in Vancouver on Monday, Philadelphia Flyers head coach Rick Tocchet, who will return as one of Cooper\u2019s assistants, talked about the process of putting the roster together.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery guy has will and skill, right?\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s highly skilled guys that play in the inside, highly skilled guys that can play 200 feet. That\u2019s really the team you\u2019re putting together. McDavid and MacKinnon on their own are just incredible players, but they care about the flag, and they play a 200-foot game. Those guys backcheck as good as anybody. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a two-week tournament. It\u2019s (about) coming together as quickly as possible.\u201d <\/p>\n
Hockey Canada vice-president of hockey operations Misha Donskov, who will also serve as an assistant coach at the Olympics, said Tuesday in Minneapolis the decisions were \u201cexceptionally difficult\u201d when landing on the three goaltenders and 16 skaters joining the country\u2019s original six tabbed during the Stanley Cup final.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re dealing with players at that level \u2026 every decision is hard,\u201d said Donskov, an assistant coach at the world juniors. \u201cWhen you look at the forward group, the defensive group, and then the goaltenders, they\u2019re all hard decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014 With files from Gemma Karstens-Smith in Vancouver. <\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 31, 2025.<\/p>\n
Joshua Clipperton, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NHL went to five straight Olympics from 1998 through 2014 before skipping the 2018 event. COVID-19 then…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-379364","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}