{"id":455328,"date":"2026-02-12T06:32:42","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T06:32:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/455328\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T06:32:42","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T06:32:42","slug":"eight-colorado-avalanche-players-to-represent-their-countries-at-winter-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/455328\/","title":{"rendered":"Eight Colorado Avalanche players to represent their countries at Winter Games"},"content":{"rendered":"

DENVER, Colo. (KOAA) \u2014 Eight Colorado Avalanche players will represent their countries at the 2026 Olympic Winter Games in Milan Cortina!<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Players<\/p>\n

Team USA<\/p>\n

Center Brock Nelson is the lone Avs representative for Team USA. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Nelson is looking to continue his family legacy for Team USA. His grandfather, Bill Christian, and great uncle, Roger Christian, were forwards on the 1960 squad that beat the Soviet Union and Canada.<\/p>\n

\"Brock<\/p>\n

KOAA News5<\/p>\n

His uncle, Dave Christian, led the 1980 team in assists on the way to their iconic semifinal victory over the Soviet Union and gold medal win over Finland in Lake Placid.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Team USA will play it’s first game Thursday against Latvia. Puck drop is at 1:10 p.m.<\/p>\n

Team Canada<\/p>\n

In June, each country named six players to their Olympic rosters. <\/p>\n

Making Team Canada that month from the Avs were center Nathan MacKinnon and defenseman Cale Makar. <\/p>\n

\"Nathan<\/p>\n

KOAA News5<\/p>\n

Makar will also serve as an alternative captain for Team Canada during the Olympics.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Defenseman Devon Toews was named to Team Canada when the final rosters were announced last month.<\/p>\n

Team Czechia <\/p>\n

In his first full season with the Avs, winger Martin Necas was selected to represent Team Czechia. Necas was also one of the six players who was selected in June. <\/p>\n

\"Martin<\/p>\n

KOAA News5<\/p>\n

Team Sweden<\/p>\n

Avalanche winger Gabriel Landeskog was one of the first six players chosen to represent Team Sweden. Last weekend, he was named the country’s captain for the Olympics. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Landeskog scored a power play goal in Sweden’s 5-2 victory against Italy during the preliminary round. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Team Finland<\/p>\n

Avs wingers Artturi Lehkonen and Joel Kiviranta were both selected to represent Team Finland. It’s the first time since 2006 that the Avs will have two players representing Team Finland.<\/p>\n

\"Artturi<\/p>\n

KOAA News5<\/p>\n

Rink Size Concerns<\/p>\n

The size of the Olympic rink was roughly three feet shorter than the size of an NHL rink, which raised safety concerns from some players and league officials. You can hear from Makar and Necas about the rink size below:<\/p>\n

Schedules<\/p>\n

The preliminary round will start on Wednesday, February 11. There are three hockey groups during the preliminary round, which are listed below:<\/p>\n

Group A:<\/p>\n

CanadaCzechiaSwitzerlandFrance<\/p>\n

Group B:<\/p>\n

Finland\u00a0SwedenSlovakiaItaly<\/p>\n

Group C:<\/p>\n

You can view the schedule for the countries Avs players will be representing below:<\/p>\n

\"Feb<\/p>\n

KOAA News5<\/p>\n

\"Feb<\/p>\n

KOAA News5<\/p>\n

\"Feb<\/p>\n

KOAA News5<\/p>\n

\"Feb<\/p>\n

KOAA News5<\/p>\n

\"Feb<\/p>\n

KOAA News5<\/p>\n

Each team will play each country in their group once. The winner of each group and the team with the best record that didn’t win their group will have a bye during the qualifier round, which will be held on Tuesday, February 17.<\/p>\n

In the qualifier round, the fifth through 12th-ranked teams will play each other. The format is below:<\/p>\n

fifth team vs 12thsixth vs 11thseventh vs 10theighth vs ninth <\/p>\n

The tie-breaks for teams with the same record are as follows:<\/p>\n

higher position in the grouphigher number of points (three points for win, one point if game is tied after regulation, additional point for team winning in five-minute overtime, zero points for regulation loss)better goal differencehigher number of goals scored for\u00a0better 2020 IIHF World Ranking (teams ranked in order: Canada, Finland, Sweden, Czechia, USA, Germany, Switzerland, Slovakia, Latvia, Denmark, France, Italy)<\/p>\n

The quarterfinals will be held on Wednesday, February 18. The format of those games is below:<\/p>\n

first seed vs eight\/nine winnersecond vs seven\/10 winnerthird vs six\/11 winnerfour vs five\/12 winner<\/p>\n

The semifinal games will be held on Friday, February 20. The highest seed will play the lowest remaining, and the two middle seeds will play each other. The winners of the semifinals will play for gold, and the losers will play for bronze. Both medal games will be held on Sunday, February 22.<\/p>\n

This section will be updated as the games are played. <\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A feature on the I-25 noise wall that you can only notice when it snows<\/p>\n

Is the mountain design on the I-25 south wall intentional? It comes out a bit, so when snow falls, it tends to pile up and look like a snowcap.<\/p>\n

A feature on the I-25 noise wall that you can only notice when it snows<\/p>\n

News Tips <\/p>\n

What should KOAA5 cover? Is there a story, topic, or issue we should revisit? Have a story you believe should make the light of day? Let our newsroom know with the contact form below. <\/p>\n

____<\/p>\n

Watch KOAA News5 on your time, anytime with our free streaming app available for your Roku, FireTV, AppleTV and Android TV. Just search KOAA News5<\/a>, download and start watching.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DENVER, Colo. (KOAA) \u2014 Eight Colorado Avalanche players will represent their countries at the 2026 Olympic Winter Games…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":455329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5116],"tags":[193,55307,192,144,4931,13197,13198,5277,5,13199,13200,13201,54148,4],"class_list":["post-455328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-colorado-avalanche","tag-avalanche","tag-avs-olympians","tag-colorado","tag-colorado-avalanche","tag-colorado-news","tag-colorado-pueblo-news","tag-colorado-springs-news","tag-coloradoavalanche","tag-hockey","tag-koaa","tag-koaa-5","tag-koaa-news-5","tag-koaa5","tag-nhl"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116056264324437461","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/455329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}