Not to be the bearer of bad news, but winter is coming. And the winter Olympic sports season arrives even sooner, with the top-end tours in curling and figure skating getting started over the next couple of weeks.
Here’s a quick overview of when things get going and some storylines to anticipate in a few sports where Canada excels. We’ll get into more detail in future newsletters as the various seasons come on line.
Curling
The Grand Slam season begins next week with the Invitational in Victoria and will include a total of five events, culminating with the Players’ Cup in mid-December.
Then it’s time for the Rock League, which is owned by the same company that now controls the Slams. The fledgling Rock League debuted last April with a one-off event in Toronto after nixing its plans for a six-stop international tour. Its first full season will be made up of five tournaments in Canada and the United States, beginning in early January in Moose Jaw, Sask., and ending in April in Kalamazoo, Mich. The Rock League differentiates itself from the Slams by featuring six “franchises” made up of 10 players (five men, five women) from different countries, a novel format and some quirky rules.
The Rock League takes a break from early February to early April to accommodate the Scotties Tournament of Hearts, the Brier and the women’s and men’s world championships. The men’s worlds will take place in Saint John, N.B., while the women’s worlds are still looking for a host.
Canadian star Brad Gushue retired after the Brier last winter in his hometown of St. John’s, finishing his career with a record six Brier titles as a skip, one world championship and an Olympic gold. Canada’s Brad Jacobs returns with the same team that captured the Olympic men’s gold medal in Italy last winter, while Rachel Homan’s women’s bronze-winning squad remains intact.
Matt Dunstone, who beat Jacobs in the Brier semis en route to his first Canadian title before taking silver at the world championships, has added former Gushue sidekick Mark Nichols to his lineup in place of the retired E.J. Harnden. Kerri Einarson, who took advantage of Homan’s absence to win her fifth Scotties before also taking silver at the worlds, swapped out Val Sweeting for mixed doubles Olympian Jocelyn Peterman. Here’s a look at all the lineup changes.
Long track speed skating
The six-stop World Cup tour begins in mid-November in Beijing and ends in Calgary in early February, a few weeks before everyone returns to Beijing for the single-distances world championships.
There were no singles-distances worlds last season as the Olympics served that purpose. Canada won five medals on the oval in Milan, highlighted by a second consecutive gold in the women’s team pursuit by Ivanie Blondin, Valérie Maltais and Isabelle Weidemann. Maltais added a pair of bronze in the individual 1,500m and 3,000m, Blondin took silver in the mass start, and Laurent Dubreuil earned Canada’s lone men’s medal in the 500m.
Blondin retired after the Olympics, finishing her career with four Olympic medals and five world titles. Long-distance standout Ted-Jan Bloemen, who won an Olympic gold and silver in 2018, also hung up his blades. Maltais, 36, has indicated that this will be her final season, while the 34-year-old Dubreuil could be nearing the end as well.
Canada will select its World Cup team after the national championships in Quebec City next weekend. Some intrigue was added to that event today as short-track star Will Dandjinou revealed that he’ll compete in the 1,500m and possibly the mass start.
Short track speed skating
Dandjinou announced recently that he’ll be skipping the first two short track World Tour stops, which are taking place in Vancouver and Montreal toward the end of this month. Explaining his decision to dabble in long track to CBC Sports’ Devin Heroux, the 25-year-old indicated he was in need of a reset after a deeply disappointing Olympics.
The back-to-back World Tour men’s overall champion was expected to make a run at five medals in Milan, but he went home with only one — a silver in the mixed relay. At the season-ending world championships in his hometown of Montreal, Dandjinou once again failed to reach the podium in his three individual races, though he did contribute to Canada’s gold in the men’s relay and silver in the mixed relay.
Steven Dubois won Canada’s only short track gold at the Milan-Cortina Olympics in the men’s 500m, then repeated as world champion in Montreal, where he was also part of those two relay medals. Courtney Sarault led all Canadian athletes with four medals in Milan, but the mixed relay silver was her only medal in Montreal.
Dandjinou will join the World Tour in late November in Seoul and presumably compete in the final five of the seven stops, as well as the world championships in Seoul in March.
Figure skating
The Grand Prix circuit gets underway on Oct. 23 in France before making its annual visit to Canada the following week in Kelowna, B.C. Skaters can compete in any two of the six regular-season stops, and the top six in the points standings in each discipline — men’s, women’s, pairs and ice dance — advance to the Grand Prix Final in China in mid-December. Then the focus shifts toward the world championships in Finland in March.
Canada’s lone figure skating medallists at the Milan-Cortina Olympics were Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier. They took bronze in the ice dance for their first Olympic podium appearance before winning a silver at the world championships in Prague for their fifth medal in six years. The 34-year-olds are taking this season off to “rest and reset,” but Canada has a promising duo in Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud, who grabbed a bronze in Prague for their first worlds medal after finishing eighth at the Olympics. The 2024 world title-winning pairs team of Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps broke up after their disastrous 11th-place finish at the Olympics. Deschamps retired and Stellato-Dudek switched back to her native United States to skate with a new partner.
On the singles side, this could be a big season for 21-year-old Canadian Stephen Gogolev. He earned his first Grand Prix medal last season with a bronze in Finland before placing a surprising fifth at the Olympics and fourth at the world championships.
Hockey
Canada will not have a chance to avenge its Olympic men’s gold-medal loss to the United States as there is no men’s best-on-best event this season. That’s coming in 2028 with the return of the World Cup of Hockey.
But the Canadian women’s team will get another crack at the reigning Olympic and world champion U.S. at the world championships in Denmark in November. The Americans recaptured the world title last spring in Czechia with an overtime win over Canada, then beat them in OT again in the Milan Olympic final.
The world championships are moving from the spring to the fall to accommodate the growing Professional Women’s Hockey League, which opens its fourth season on Dec. 5.
Other sports
* Alpine skiing’s World Cup tour begins on Oct. 24 in Austria and includes one Canadian stop at Quebec’s Mont-Tremblant in early December. The highlight of the season is the world championships in February in Switzerland, where Canada will try to get back on the podium after winning no medals at the 2025 worlds and the 2026 Olympics.
* The ski and snowboard cross World Cup seasons start in December. On the ski side, Canada’s Reece Howden will be going for his third straight men’s title and fifth of his career. Canadian snowboarder Éliot Grondin fell short of his third consecutive Crystal Globe last season but grabbed his third career Olympic medal with a silver in Milan, where Howden was eliminated in the quarterfinals. The world championships are in March in Austria.
* In freestyle skiing, the moguls GOAT is gone after Canada’s Mikaël Kingsbury retired at the end of last season, shortly after winning his fifth Olympic medal and second gold. But don’t forget about Megan Oldham, who won Olympic gold in the women’s big air and bronze in slopestyle in Italy. World Cup action in the “park and pipe” events launches in late November, and Calgary will host a stop in the new X Games League in February.
