The women's hockey tournament at the Milano Cortina 2026 games kicks off on Thursday, February 5. We've gathered up a bunch of the details and logistics you'll need to watch the games from first puck drop to the gold medal game.
Teams
(We are pairing the teams in our previews based on the team's IIHF rankings. When we have completed our preview for each team, it will be linked here in this list.)
- United States
- Canada
- Finland
- Czechia
- Switzerland
- Sweden
- Japan
- Germany
- France
- Italy
Tournament Format
These will be the second Olympics to have 10 teams.
Five teams (Canada, United States, Finland, Czech Republic and Switzerland) qualified for the 2026 Olympics by virtue of their IIHF World ranking and make up Group A.
Group B has Italy as the host nation, plus Japan, Sweden and Germany, who earned their place through winning their respective Olympic qualification tournaments. As Russia was ruled ineligible, France takes the final spot as the strongest second-placed team.
All teams in Group A automatically qualify for the quarterfinals - they will still play a full round of group play and those results will be used to determine their position in the single-elimination bracket that's formed before the quarterfinals. The top three teams in Group B following group play advance while the bottom two teams are eliminated.
Quarterfinal matchups will be set as A1 vs B3, A2 vs B2, A3 vs B1, and A4 vs A5.
Teams will be reseeded after the quarterfinals to determine smeifinal pairings.
Group play begins on February 5th prior to the Olympic opening ceremonies and goes through February 10th. The quarterfinals will be played on February 13th and 14th, followed by the semifinals on the 14th, the bronze medal game on the 16th, and the gold medal game on the 19th.
There are varying rules for overtime procedures at each stage, but there will be no shootout in the gold medal game; only a sudden-death goal to crown the Olympic champions of Milano Cortina 2026.
How to Watch and What to Expect
For those of us in North America, these games will be starting in the early morning and lasting throughout the early afternoon, with games starting between 6:10 a.m. and 2:10 p.m. Eastern. They're played locally on Central European Time (UTC +1), which is 6 hours ahead of Eastern Standard time.
A full schedule of games can be found here on the Milano 2026 site. The IIHF also runs a site similar to their World Championship coverage for this tournament.
Steven Ellis of Daily Faceoff made a Google Calendar for the women's games you can access here.
NBC has all the Olympic broadcast rights in the US and events will air on NBC, CNBC, and USA Network, and stream live on Peacock and NBC Sports platform.
It appears all women's hockey games will air live on USA Network and be available to stream on Peacock. NBC has a schedule that can be filtered by sport and there's a toggle at the top to filter for TV only.
For English-language broadcasts and streaming in Canada, it appears women's hockey will be on CBC throughout the tournament as well as on TSN1. The TSN broadcast schedule can be found here. Everything should also be free live and on-demand via CBC's website and app.
French-language broadcasts are available through Radio-Canada and its website or app, with some games also airing on RDS. Michaël Roy will do play-by-play with Isabelle Leclaire on color.
There are two venues for ice hockey in Milan. The Milano Santagiulia Arena is one of two purpose-built spaces for these games and it's the location that's been at the center of the pre-Games conversations about whether it will be completed in time or not. Journalists who visited the even this week said it's still an active construction zone but the IOC and Milano 2026 representatives keep saying everything is fine and will be ready to go. Per the Olympics venue site linked above, the capacity is 14,000. But all current reporting on the venue lists it at 11,800 seats. This is the venue scheduled to host both men's and women's gold medal games.
In the linked article, Christophe Dubi, the International Olympic Committee’s executive director for the Olympic Games, said the arena would be ready by first puck drop.
“Do we have every single space in that venue finished? No. And is everything in that venue needed [for the matches to take place]? No.”
The other stadium hosting games is the Milan Rho Ice Arena. The arena was created at a former fairground complex that hosts industrial trade shows. The complex will now also have the short-track speed skating venue. The hockey arena is said to seat 5,700.
The NBC hockey commentating team is led by Kenny Albert. Brendan Burke and Chris Vosters will also handle hockey play-by-play. A.J. Mleczko will serve as women’s analyst alongside Albert. Jen Botterill and Angela Ruggiero are also scheduled to provide analysis.
The CBC women's hockey team is Kenzie Lalonde and Daniella Ponticelli on play-by-play with Cheryl Pounder and Becky Kellar on color.
