Olympic viewing guide: 2 of Canada's best teams start competing tonight

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Canada nailed its picks for flag-bearer

Women's hockey team captain Marie-Philip Poulin and longtime short track speed skating star Charles Hamelin were announced today as the athletes who will carry the Canadian flag into the Olympic opening ceremony in Beijing on Friday. In the past, one athlete was usually chosen for the role. But starting at the Tokyo Olympics in July the International Olympic Committee began encouraging countries to pick a woman and a man to share it.

Poulin and Hamelin are both excellent choices. Combined, they've already competed in seven Olympics and won eight medals, including five gold, and they both have a chance to add more hardware in Beijing.

Poulin, 30, has authored some of the most thrilling moments in Canadian hockey history. She scored both goals in Canada's 2-0 win over the United States in the gold-medal game in Vancouver in 2010, then potted the late tying goal and the overtime winner in the classic 2014 Olympic final vs. the Americans. Last summer in Calgary, Captain Clutch scored another huge OT goal against Canada's archrivals, this time to beat them in the world championship final.

Hamelin, 37, also shone at the 2010 and '14 Olympics, winning an individual gold medal at each along with a relay gold in Vancouver. He also reached the relay podium in 2006 and '18. With those five medals, Hamelin needs just one more to match long track speed skater Cindy Klassen for the Canadian Winter Olympic record. A sixth medal would also tie Hamelin with Andre De Grasse as Canada's most decorated male Olympian. A seventh would put him alongside Penny Oleksiak for most decorated Canadian Olympian ever. Hamelin will compete in his fifth, and probably final, Olympic Games once short track competition gets going on Saturday.

Read more about Hamelin and Poulin and their thoughts on being selected as Canada's flag-bearers here. You can watch the opening ceremony live Friday on the CBC TV network and CBC News Network, or stream it live on CBC Gem, the CBC Sports app and CBC Sports' Beijing 2022 website. Coverage begins at 6:30 a.m. ET and the show starts at 7 a.m. ET.

Canadian athletes start competing tonight — in two of our best sports

The Games have begun. Competition in Beijing opened this morning with the first draw of the mixed doubles curling event. The Canadian duo of Rachel Homan and John Morris was not involved, but they'll hit the ice tonight. Same for another of Canada's top gold-medal contenders: the women's hockey team. Here's a look at both of the powerful Canadian teams in action on Wednesday night and Thursday morning in our time zones:

Mixed doubles curling

Homan and Morris play their opener tonight at 8:05 p.m. ET vs. Great Britain's Jennifer Dodds and Bruce Mouat. The Canadians are back out there Thursday at 7:05 a.m. ET vs. Norway and 7:35 p.m. ET vs. Switzerland.

That's a challenging start for the Canadians, who are defending the gold medal Morris won with Kaitlyn Lawes in 2018, when mixed doubles made its Olympic debut. Dodds and Mouat are the reigning mixed doubles world champions, and Mouat is one of the best men's skips in the world. He took silver at the world championship last year and is among the favourites to win gold in the Olympic men's event. The Swiss and Norwegian duos that Homan and Morris will face are the same ones that got the silver and bronze, respectively, at the 2018 Olympics.

Of course, the Canadians are pretty tough too. Morris, 43, is a proven Olympic performer who won a men's gold medal as the third for Kevin Martin in 2010 before taking the mixed doubles title with Lawes in 2018. Homan, 32, is one of the most successful skips ever, with three Scotties titles and a world championship in her trophy case.

Homan and Morris were appointed to represent Canada in Beijing after the Canadian mixed doubles trials were cancelled due to the pandemic. But this isn't some shotgun partnership. They've played mixed doubles together since 2015. Morris turned to Lawes four years ago after Homan won the Canadian women's trials, which made her ineligible for Olympic mixed doubles because Curling Canada doesn't let anyone compete in more than one event at the same Games. Morris and Lawes dominated in Pyeongchang, rattling off eight consecutive wins following their loss in the opener to take gold. Lawes is also in Beijing as the third for Jennifer Jones' rink in the women's event.

For Homan, Beijing is a shot at redemption. Her women's team bombed four years ago in Pyeongchang, going 4-5 and becoming the first Canadian rink to miss the playoffs at the Olympics.

The mixed doubles tournament follows the same simple format used in the men's and women's four-player events: after a 10-team round robin, the top four teams advance to the semifinals. The winners of the semis play for gold, and the losers for bronze. Read more about the mixed doubles competition and Canada's outlook here.

Women's hockey

For basically its entire history, international women's hockey has been a bipolar system. This not-so-cold war between Canada and the United States has seen the rival superpowers battle in 19 of the 20 world championship finals and five of the six Olympic gold-medal games. No other country has won an Olympic or world title.

Though there's the odd sign of a potential shift — Sweden's upset of the U.S. in the 2006 Olympic semifinals; Finland beating Canada in the semis of the 2019 worlds — the basic hierarchy remains unchanged: it's the Canadians' and Americans' world; everyone else is just living in it. Anything other than another showdown between them in the gold-medal game in Beijing would be shocking.

Everything before that — or at least until the semifinals — is, to be honest, not much more than a warmup. Canada opens its round-robin slate tonight at 11:10 p.m. ET vs. Switzerland, then will face Finland (the 2018 bronze medallists) on Friday night, Russia on Sunday night and the United States on Monday night at the same time. All five teams in this group advance to the playoffs, so seeding is the only thing on the line for them.

Assuming Canada and the U.S. meet again in the final, expect another classic. Seemingly every meaningful game between them is tooth and nail. The epic 2014 Olympic final — won by Canada in overtime, thanks to Marie-Philip Poulin's heroics and a kind goal post — was the most exciting hockey game in Sochi (women's or men's). In 2018, the Americans took the Olympic title for the first time since 1998 with a shootout win. The Canadians returned the favour at last summer's world championship in Calgary, grabbing their first title since 2012 on another overtime winner by the incomparable Poulin. That was the fourth consecutive world championship final decided in either OT or a shootout. 

The gold-medal game in Beijing is Feb. 16 at 11:10 p.m. ET. Do not miss it. Read a full preview of the women's hockey tournament here.

Some other interesting stuff you should know about

Canada's strongest favourite for an individual gold medal starts competing tomorrow morning. Reigning Olympic and world men's moguls champion Mikaël Kingsbury hits the hill for the qualification round Thursday at 6:45 a.m. ET. The 29-year-old is on pace to win his 10th consecutive World Cup moguls season title and is considered the best to ever do the sport. But his bid for another Olympic gold could be challenged by Japan's Ikuma Horishima, a former world champ who has beaten Kingsbury for a victory three times this season and trails him by just a thin margin in the World Cup standings. The women's qualification round goes at 5 a.m. ET and includes Canadian sisters Justine and Chloe Dufour-Lapointe. They shared the podium at the 2014 Olympics, where Justine won gold and Chloe silver. Justine added a silver in 2018. Chloe is currently ranked 15th in the World Cup standings, and Justine is 16th. Read a preview of the men's and women's moguls events here.

Canada's top men's singles figure skater might not make it to Beijing. Keegan Messing, who won the men's title at last month's Canadian championships, is still in Canada hoping to get the negative COVID-19 test results necessary to travel to Beijing. The 30-year-old had been expected to skate for Canada in the team event, which begins Thursday night in Canadian time zones. He'll reportedly be replaced by 22-year-old Roman Sadovsky, who placed second at nationals and is Canada's other entry in the men's singles event. Neither Messing nor Sadovsky is considered a medal contender in the men's, and Canada is a long shot to reach the podium in the team competition. The Canadian Olympic Committee said today that Messing is the only Canadian athlete currently at risk of missing their event due to COVID testing. Read more about Messing's status here.

And in non-Olympic news…

The Canadian men's soccer team can move another step closer to the World Cup tonight. Coming off Sunday's massive 2-0 win over the United States in Hamilton, Ont., Canada remains undefeated and alone atop the standings in the final round of its regional qualifying tournament for this year's World Cup. The top three teams get a direct ticket to November's tournament in Qatar. With four matches left, Canada is four points ahead of the U.S. and Mexico and five points clear of fourth-place Panama. A win is worth three points, so that's a sizable cushion for the Canadians heading into their match at sixth-place El Salvador tonight at 9 p.m. ET. Though not impossible, it's unlikely Canada clinches a World Cup berth tonight. That will probably happen during the final window of matches, in late March. Canadian superstar Alphonso Davies should be back for those after being ruled out of the entire current window due to a heart issue. Read a full preview of tonight's match here.

How to watch live Olympic events

They're being broadcast on TV on CBC, TSN and Sportsnet. Or choose exactly what you want to watch by live streaming on CBC Gem, the CBC Sports app and CBC Sports' Beijing 2022 website. Check out the full streaming schedule (with links to live events) here and read more about how to watch the Games here.

If you're located outside Canada, you unfortunately won't be able to access CBC Sports' coverage of the Games on the app or the website. That's due to the way the Olympics' media rights deals work. But if you're in the northern United States or other international regions, such as Bermuda, that regularly offer the CBC TV network, you can watch the Games there.

You're up to speed. Talk to you tomorrow.