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Newsletter by Dan Plouffe, Martin Cleary & Keiran Gorsky
Ottawa Charge captain Brianne Jenner slipped a pass to Julia Gosling for a goal just 17 seconds into the second period to complete Canada’s scoring in a 5-1 rout of Czechia in women’s hockey action on Monday at the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics.
It was Jenner’s second assist to Gosling in a row as Canada’s cruised to its second consecutive four-goal victory of the tournament following its opening 4-0 victory over Switzerland on Saturday.
After serving as backup in Canada’s first game against the Swiss, Ottawa’s Kayle Osborne returned to her anticipated #3 position on the Canadian goaltending chart for the contest against Czechia.
But as the former Ottawa Lady Sens player from Munster looked around the Milano Rho Arena, she would have spotted a heap of hometown connections competing at the Games.
Jenner is one of three Ottawa Charge Professional Women’s Hockey League players on Team Canada, and one of many more Olympians with links to the nation’s capital. We’d like to seize the opportunity to tell you more about some of them on a day with a lighter competition calendar for Ottawa athletes.
Jenner was the top goal scorer and tournament MVP in the Beijing 2022 Olympics. Ottawa’s Jamie Lee Rattray, who wasn’t selected for Canada’s 2026 Games team, was sixth overall with five goals in Beijing as the Canadians celebrated their return to the top of the podium on the heels of a silver in 2018 and four gold in a row before that.
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An assistant captain for Team Canada, Jenner has returned to top form this season, already matching her 15-point output from last year before the PWHL’s 2026 Olympic break, which is best out of all Canadian PWHLers. A force on the powerplay, this is the fourth Olympic appearance for the 34-year-old from Oakville.
Charge assistant captain Jocelyne Larocque has played each one of those Games alongside Jenner.
The 37-year-old defender from St. Anne, MB was first inspired to chase her dreams by watching the inaugural Olympic women’s hockey championship game at Nagano 1998.
Canada’s lone player born in the 1980s, Larocque heads an experienced group of blueliners wearing the maple leaf. She was at her best for Ottawa in their playoff run last year and can be counted on as a reliable shutdown defender with occasional offensive flair.
And the Charge’s other assistant captain Emily Clark is making her third Olympic appearance for Team Canada.
Ottawa’s #2 scorer last season hasn’t yet found her offensive touch for the Charge this year, with just four points to date (although a goal and an assist did come in their most recent game). But the 30-year-old from Saskatoon’s grinding style and work ethic serves as an asset for Canada on one of its bottom forward lines.
Emerance Maschmeyer, who is ahead of Ottawa-raised Kayle Osborne on the Canadian goaltending depth chart, also has Ottawa ties.
The 31-year-old played her first two PWHL seasons for Ottawa and is married to Geneviève Lacasse, who lived mostly in Eastern Ontario while growing up in a military family.
Lacasse, who won Olympic gold in 2014 and silver in 2018 as a Team Canada goalie, gave birth to their son before the start of Maschmeyer’s second year in Ottawa.
Maschmeyer was taken by the Vancouver Goldeneyes in the PWHL expansion draft before the start of this season.
She served as backup to Anne-Renée Desbiens in today’s game against Czechia after recording the shutout in Canada’s opener.
Looking across at the opposing bench today, there were several more familiar faces from the capital.
Part of a rising Czech women’s hockey program, Kateřina Mrázová was the lone Czech forward to receive over 20 minutes of ice time from Ottawa coach Carla MacLeod, who now leads the Czechs after previously winning a pair of gold medals as a defender for Team Canada at Torino 2006 and Vancouver 2010.
Two former Charge players, Tereza Vanišová and Aneta Tejralová, who left as free agents to Vancouver and Seattle respectively, have reunited with Mrázová and MacLeod for the Olympics. Vanišová assisted on Czechia’s lone goal.
And there will be two more Charge team members on the opposing side tomorrow for the highly anticipated preliminary round showdown between Canada and USA.
After taking over for injured Maschmeyer, Gwyneth Philips was named playoff MVP after Ottawa took down top-ranked Montreal in the semi-finals and then pushed champion Minnesota to overtime in all four Walter Cup final games while posting a 1.23 goals-against average and a .942 save percentage.
In her on-ice Olympic debut today, Philips earned a shutout in USA’s 5-0 win over Switzerland, which recorded 21 shots on goal. Boston Fleet goaltender Aerin Frankel is anticipated to be the Americans’ starter for their biggest games, but Philips could certainly see more action.
Philips is joined by Charge defender Rory Guilday on Team USA.
Ottawa’s first-round selection in the 2025 PWHL draft has had a solid debut season in the PWHL and is now making her first Olympic appearance.
Known for her strong shot from the point and solid physicality, the 23-year-old is the Charge’s top scoring blueliner with eight points in 16 games.
The 2:10 p.m. ET matchup will be the first time Osborne takes on USA at the Olympics as a member of Team Canada.
To date, Osborne has largely experienced disappointment when she’s taken on the Americans in other international competitions.
The John McCrae Secondary School grad’s first bitter taste came when she served as backup to Ève Gascon in a 2-1 overtime defeat at the 2020 IIHF U18 Women’s Hockey World Championship.
In this season’s Canada vs USA Rivalry Series, Osborne was beaten five times on 31 shots while Philips turned aside 29 of 30 in the 6-1 trouncing by USA, which won all four Rivalry Series contests by at least three goals when the women’s hockey powers met in November and December.
But all that past heartache could all disappear at the speed of a Jenner slapshot if Canada can take down their nemesis on the sport’s biggest stage.
Osborne told the Ottawa Sports Pages’ Keiran Gorsky before the Games that she has every bit of faith that the world will come to know Canada’s true potential come the Milano Cortina Olympics.
“I got to see how special this group was, and not just see it, but be a part of it,” Osborne described. “It’s something you can’t really explain.”
After the showdown against the Americans comes a match against a pair of Finns from the Charge, as the Canadians faceoff in their rescheduled match to conclude the preliminary round on Thursday.
Ronja Savolainen will be looking for her third consecutive Olympic podium after earning bronze medals with Finland in 2022 and 2018.
Admired for her physicality and fitness, the 28-year-old defender was chosen as one of the Charge’s protected players in the PWHL expansion draft. She plays alongside Larocque as Ottawa’s top defensive pair.
Charge backup goaltender Sanni Ahola was the first Finnish goaltender drafted to the PWHL and started as her country’s #1 goalie for the Olympic tournament, playing all of a 5-0 loss to USA after her team had been rocked by the norovirus.
The 25-year-old recorded her first PWHL victory in a shootout over Boston in January and is making her Olympic debut.
Ottawa has links to men’s hockey players, figure skater & curlers
Ottawa sports most of its looser Olympic connections in women’s hockey, but there are also a half-dozen Ottawa Senators players representing foreign countries in the men’s hockey Olympic competition.
The Ottawa Citizen‘s Callum Fraser (once upon a time a placement student from Algonquin College with the Ottawa Sports Pages before he began his career with Bell Media in Ottawa) provides a full rundown of the six Sens Olympians in this feature.
(While we’re doing shout-outs: thank you also to photographer Derek Mellon for all of the great shots above of the Ottawa Charge!)
In this full feature by Dan Plouffe, you can also hear about capital connections to several more Olympians, including curlers Tracy Fleury and Sarah Wilkes, figure skater Paul Poirier and Team Italy men’s hockey player Jason Seed.
Ottawa Olympians in action on Feb. 10:
Day 4 Preview: Olympic cross-country ski courses suit second-time Olympian Antoine Cyr
In his first competition of the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics, Gatineau’s Antoine Cyr stuck with the leaders for the first third of the men’s 20 km cross-country skiathlon before fading to 25th on Sunday.
For Tuesday’s individual sprint, the 27-year-old will only be tasked with keeping up the pace for 1.5 km as he prepares for the qualification round and elimination heats of the classic-style event.
On the long road to Cyr’s second Olympic appearance, there were certainly some unfavourable twists that put him behind, but the Club Skinouk product went with the flow and is now back ready to race in his favourite discipline on the Olympic calendar.
Only one athlete met the Nordiq Canada standards during the 2024-25 international season to be pre-qualified for nomination to the Canadian Olympic team. That was fellow Quebec skier Katherine Stewart-Jones of Chelsea and Nakkertok Nordic.
Cyr, who recorded the best-ever result (fifth) by a Canadian in the men’s team classic sprint with Graham Ritchie at the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, missed the boat on that opportunity. And it also cost him his traditional start on the World Cup circuit for this season.
When the FIS World Cup season opened in Ruka, Finland and continued in Trondheim, Norway and Davos, Switzerland in November and December, Cyr wasn’t sent to Europe by Nordiq Canada for those pre-Olympic races.
Instead of heading east from his home near Mont Ste. Anne, PQ to go overseas, Cyr headed west to train at the Canmore Nordic Centre, where he would go around and around a 1.6-kilometre loop of snow that had been preserved from the 2024-25 ski season.
“It was quite hard,” Cyr said about missing the early international races in a pre-Games interview with High Achievers columnist Martin Cleary. “I wasn’t racing the World Cups with my group of people performing in races. It was a little tough. But that’s life. That’s how she goes sometimes.”
After difficulties in preparation and a nerve-racking wait to hear whether he’d be chosen to go to the Olympics following the Canadian team trials, Cyr was both thrilled and relieved to be nominated for his second Olympic appearance.
“Not many people can say they’re a two-time Olympian,” noted Cyr. “I worked so hard to make this thing happen to represent my country and the community that I’ve grown up with and that has supported me.”
The Olympic nod also opened up the chance for Cyr to compete in the six-stage Tour de Ski from Dec. 28 to Jan. 4 in Italy, where Cyr posted his best-ever overall result with an 11th-place showing.
The bonus for Cyr and his peers was the final two stages were held at Val di Fiemme, which is the site of the races for the 2026 Winter Olympics.
“It’s a really good course for me,” he highlighted. “There’s a lot of striding and that suits me in the classic races.”
You can read Cleary’s full feature on Cyr’s journey to the Olympics here.
Also in action on Tuesday will be Valérie Grenier in the women’s team combined alpine skiing event. The Mont-Tremblant athlete from St. Isidore, ON will be looking for a bit of redemption after getting disqualified from the women’s downhill following a pre-race equipment snafu. She’ll race the downhill portion of the event, while Canadian teammate Laurence St. Germain will handle the slalom.
Tuesday will mark the Olympic debut of Ottawa biathlete Zach Connelly. The 24-year-old Chelsea Nordiq product is set to push out at exactly 8:06:30 a.m. ET as the 73rd starter in the men’s 20 km individual event, which will see 89 skiers/shooters take off at 30-second intervals in the timed competition. Biathletes will ski four 5 km loops, with shooting stations at the end of each lap. Alternating between prone and standing positions, athletes will be penalized 1 minute for each target missed.
And Kayle Osborne and Team Canada will of course have their marquee matchup of the preliminary round when they take on Team USA in women’s hockey.
Ottawa at the Olympics Newsletter
The Ottawa Sports Pages will produce an Ottawa at the Olympics Newsletter throughout the Feb. 6-22 Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Games, featuring daily recaps, previews and competition schedules. Sign up to receive it in your inbox for free below.
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