All right, let's get the bad news out of the way first.
Canada's medal count hasn't shifted in the past day of competition, and still stands at six. (That's four bronze, one silver and one gold, thanks to Mikael Kingsbury and Max Parrot, respectively.) That means the Great White North has dropped to seventh place in the medal standings, after being surpassed overnight by Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Italy and Austria, in that order.
Even though there wasn't any more hardware won yesterday, there were a few highlights!
In women's hockey, Team Canada defeated its American rivals in the round robin tournament. As usual when these two teams meet, it was a tight game with lots of back and forth. Brianne Jenner scored, before the U.S. countered with two more goals to take the lead. Jenner scored again to tie it up, before a shot from Jamie Lee Rattray put Canada back in front. Finally, captain Marie-Philip Poulin buried the puck on a penalty shot late in the second period to secure the lead.
CAPTAIN CLUTCH ™️
— Team Canada (@TeamCanada) February 8, 2022
🎥: @CBCOlympics
pic.twitter.com/PQsQKhAZjy
Goalie Anne-Renee Desbiens also pulled out all the stops—literally—with 51 saves. Just 19 more than her last three games put together, no big deal.
The win secured Canada's undefeated status in the four-game preliminary round, giving them the top spot in Group A. Quarter-finals start late Thursday.
A few locals also returned to competition on Monday, with Whistler Mountain Ski Club alums Jack Crawford, Broderick Thompson and Brodie Seger all stepping into the start gate for the Super-G race. Crawford was the top-performing Canadian with his sixth-place finish, coming one day after earning fourth place in the downhill. Teammate Trevor Philip came 10th, while both Thompson and Seger weren't able to finish the race after overshooting the first jump and missing the seventh gate. Austria's Matthias Mayer took the win.
The athletes will be back on skis tomorrow for the men's Alpine Combined event, with the Downhill run scheduled for 6:30 p.m. and the Slalom run at 10:15 p.m. PST.
Skiers also dropped into Beiing's big air facility, located a repurposed steel mill on the City's west side, for the inaugural Olympic women's big air final. Meghan Oldham, a 20-year-old from Parry Sound, Ont., finished heartbreakingly-close to the podium with her fourth-place result, after qualifying in first. Quebec City's Olivia Asselin finished eighth in her Olympic debut.
Another highlight for Sea to Sky Olympic fans came extra-early Tuesday morning west coast time, when Pemberton's Trinity Ellis and Whistler's Natalie Corless took to the sliding track for their third and fourth runs in the women's singles event. Both put down a pair of extra-smooth runs that earned Ellis 14th overall, while Corless finished in 16th. A third Canadian slider, Makena Hodgson, took 17th place after four runs.
Earlier Tuesday evening, freestyle skier Evan McEachran finished ninth in the men's big air finals, just before snowboarder Liam Gill (who replaced injured Whistler local Derek Livingston on the Canadian Olympic roster) dropped into the halfpipe for qualifiers.
That's it for today. Who knew recapping one day of competition was far less overwhelming than trying to summarize three? Be back tomorrow with women's snowboard cross and alpine skiing results for you!
