MILAN — NHL players are back in the Winter Olympics, and the competition gets underway today with two preliminary round games.

Finland takes on Slovakia in the early game at Santaguilia Ice Hockey Arena. In evening action, host Italy takes on Sweden.

Finland is the defending champion after winning the 2022 Beijing Olympics. Canada leads the NHL era (1998 to 2014) with gold medals in 2002, 2010 and 2014. Czechia won in 1998 (Nagano) and Sweden in 2006 (Torino).

The USA won silver medals in 2002 and 2010. It last won a gold medal in 1980 at the Lake Placid Olympics. The Americans begin their preliminary round Thursday against Latvia.

Here are scores from today as games wrap up.

Watch Olympics figure skating on Peacock

Olympic men’s hockey schedule today

All times Eastern.

10:40 a.m.: Slovakia vs. Finalnd
3:10 p.m.: Sweden vs. Italy

Where to watch Olympic men’s hockey

How the Olympics men’s hockey tournament works

The 12 teams are divided into three groups. They are:

Group A: Canada, Switzerland, Czechia, France
Group B: Finland, Sweden, Slovakia, Italy
Group C: USA, Germany, Latvia, Denmark

Teams play one game each against the other three teams in their group. Countries get three points for a regulation win, two for an overtime win, one for an overtime/shootout loss and zero for a regulation loss.

After the preliminary round is complete, teams are seeded 1 through 12 under the following criteria:

Higher position in the group
Higher number of points
Better goal difference
Higher number of goals scored for 
Better IIHF world ranking

Why are there no fights in Olympic hockey?

International Ice Hockey Federation prohibits fighting, and it could lead to an ejection and a suspension.

‘Fighting is not part of international ice hockey’s DNA,’ the organization states in Rule 46 of the IIHF rulebook.

‘Players who willingly, participate in a ‘brawl/fight’ so-called ‘willing combatants,’ shall be penalized accordingly by the referee(s) and may be ejected from the game,’ the rulebook says. ‘Further supplementary discipline may be imposed.’

How long is NHL Olympic break? Key remaining dates in 2025-26 season

The NHL will take a break from Feb. 6-24 for the 2026 Winter Olympics. There are seven games on the schedule on Feb. 5. No trades can take place during the Olympic break.

When is the Olympic men’s hockey tournament?

The tournament starts Feb. 11 with two games. The USA opens play Feb. 12 against Latvia. All teams will play three games during the round robin, which runs through Feb. 15. The top four teams get byes to the quarterfinals.

Playoff qualification games are on Feb. 17 for teams ranked fifth through 12th, quarterfinals are Feb. 18 and semifinals are Feb. 20.

The bronze medal game is Feb. 21 and the gold medal game is Sunday, Feb. 22.

The NHL is on an Olympic break, but prospects around the world are continuing to grow. 

Player development is an ongoing process. A player’s draft year is one of the most integral of their career because it so often shapes the perspectives of scouts, general managers and fans alike. Until these players reach the NHL, the picture they paint in their draft year is often the only one people will remember. 

With so many of the best prospects in the world entering the stretch run of their season, they have begun to showcase what kind of players they are. Let’s look at the picture the top prospects have painted to this point and what trait each of them is most going to be known for as we head toward June’s NHL draft.

Top 10 NHL draft players

1. Frolunda (Sweden) left wing Ivar Stenberg

Stenberg’s draft year will be remembered for his incredible scoring pace in the Swedish League, where he is on pace to break the league scoring record for a draft-eligible player. It will also be remembered for his impressive performance at the World Junior Championship, where he improved as the tournament went on, leading Sweden to a gold medal. Stenberg has painted a very complete picture. 

2. Penn State (NCAA) left wing Gavin McKenna

As much as McKenna has taken some strides on the ice since the world juniors, the most unfortunate thing that will be remembered about his draft year is the incident outside of a bar where he allegedly broke someone’s jaw and now faces three charges, none of which have been proven in court to this point. He’s painted some beautiful pictures on the ice with his elite-level skill and puck handling, but so much of that has been overshadowed by this off-ice incident. 

3. Boston University (NCAA) center Tynan Lawrence

Lawrence’s season will be remembered in two parts: his injury-filled yet dominant start to the USHL season and the process-driven yet underwhelming production at the NCAA level.  The process has been there. Lawrence has continued to showcase his speed, skill and intelligence away from the puck, and he’s generated very good underlying results. The production hasn’t followed, however.

4. North Dakota (NCAA) defenseman Keaton Verhoeff

Verhoeff’s growth at the NCAA level might be the defining factor of his season. He’s built upon his skill and IQ to play a strong two-way game. When he was at the World Junior Championship, he started outside of the lineup and ended up looking like one of their better all-around defenders. Verhoeff’s game has become more complete as the season has gone on, and that will be what people remember about his draft year. 

5. Jukurit (Finland) defenseman Alberts Smits

Without a doubt, Smits’ season will be remembered for skyrocketing up draft boards. He was outstanding at the world juniors, where he helped Latvia nearly upset Canada. He’s also participating in the Olympics with Latvia’s men’s team. On top of playing at the Liiga level in Finland, Smits has been outstanding. He’s a bit of a raw prospect, but he’s arguably the most intriguing defenseman in the class with all of the tools to be a top-tier defender. 

6. Djurgarden (Sweden) center Viggo Bjorck

Bjorck has consistently proved the doubters wrong this year. He played himself into a premier role in the Swedish League. On the Swedish world juniors roster, it wasn’t Anton Frondell who was tasked with taking the big faceoffs or playing in key defensive situations. It was Bjorck, the undersized center. He’s slowly proving he’ll be the exception to the rule of teams wanting big centers. Bjorck can play down the middle at the pro level. 

7. HV71 (Sweden) defenseman Malte Gustafsson

What we’ll remember from Gustafsson’s season is that when he took the step up to the SHL from Sweden’s junior level, his game improved across all three zones. Gustafsson added a physical element when playing against men instead of boys, which pairs well with his excellent mobility. He’s been a more confident puck-mover against men as well. It’s not often that a player gets better against stronger competition, but Gustafsson has done exactly that. 

8. Vancouver (WHL) left wing Mathis Preston

It’s been a year of underwhelming production and missed opportunities for Preston. He hasn’t quite scored at the rate everyone expected, and when Vancouver acquired him from Spokane, he was hurt and out of the lineup. Preston has all of the offensive skill, intellect, and pace-setting speed that you could want from a forward. He generates excellent scoring chances. He just hasn’t finished those chances as often as expected.

9. Tappara (Finland) center Oliver Suvanto 

The difficult part about choosing a defining moment or trait in Suvanto’s season is that his game as a whole is understated and defensively oriented. He’s a very steady center who understands his role is to support everyone across the ice. Suvanto has a good shot, and he plays a heavy game. His defining trait is that whoever drafts him will be pretty happy not to have to worry about his game.

10. Blainville-Boisbriand (QMJHL) defenseman Xavier Villeneuve

Villeneuve is the perfect example of how an undersized defender can be a difference-maker. With the puck, there isn’t a more dynamic blueliner in the NHL draft class. In his own end, he’s used his feet and stick to disrupt play. Once he gets the puck away from an opposing attacker, he instantly becomes an attacker himself. Villeneuve will be remembered for his dynamism and skill but also his growth as an overall player.

CORTINA d’AMPEZZO, Italy – Danny Casper never cries. 

He’s not the emotional type. He’s actually somewhat aloof. He and his curling teammates joke that he’s never focused enough to really be thrown off in-game. But looking back on the last two years from atop the Italian Dolomites at his first Winter Olympics, Casper can’t help but choke on his words. Can’t stop the tears from welling in his eyes. Can’t not feel all the feelings.

‘I don’t want to say I never thought I’d be here, because that’s all I thought about every day,” Casper told USA Today. “… But at the same time, it’s like, I did mean it when I said, ‘I guess I’ll just have to watch my friends there and cheer them on.”

Curling is Casper’s life. He’s been doing it for 13 years, since he was one of very few juniors at the Ardsley Curling Club in New York hanging around on the ice with adults gracious enough to let him tag along. Ask him what he does outside of the sport, and he won’t really have an answer for you. (‘Yeah, maybe not the healthiest thing,’ he conceded sarcastically. ‘Not sure.’)

But two years ago, he had to give it up. Had to ‘forget curling’ for a little while. A decision his body made for him, because he could no longer walk. ‘Could not do anything really.’ That included operating his cell phone, which meant it definitely included picking up and throwing a forty-something-pound curling stone.

Casper developed Guillain-Barré syndrome, or GBS – an autoimmune disease in which the body’s immune system attacks the nerves. This can lead to numbness, weakness and paralysis. It took three months for doctors to figure out what was going on with him. He’s been living with the diagnosis, which affects one to two people in every 100,000, for two years and counting.

Days are better now than they used to be. He’s a skip at the Winter Games after all, having dethroned John Shuster & Co. at the U.S. Olympic Trials to qualify. But the pain still gets to him. After making it through this four-year cycle, Casper’s not sure he could continue into 2030 if he still feels this way then. (The exact cause and cure for GBS is unknown, though most people recover fully. Casper was initially told it’d go away within eight months to a year.)

He’s doing his best to take this experience in. He wishes he was better at that sort of thing. ‘I’m always, like, screwing around during the game and stuff, and I don’t think the moment has gotten to me in good and bad ways,’ Casper said. ‘I almost would like to be a little bit more, like, ‘Wow, I’m here at the Olympics.’”

But there are moments, like Tuesday’s press conference, when Casper was asked what it meant to be in Cortina after all he’d been through. His voice caught in his throat and his chin quivered as he answered. Competing at the highest level is special. But competing at all?

‘At the end of the day, I’m curling,’ Casper said. ‘It’s pretty much all I can ask for.”

Casper initially brushed off the first indication that something was amiss back in 2024. He was competing at USA Curling Mixed Doubles Nationals. He doesn’t usually compete in mixed doubles. And he doesn’t usually sweep, which he was doing for partner Vickey Persinger. 

Sweeping wasn’t one of Casper’s strengths. So when he started dealing with neck and back pain at the event, he chalked it up to a skill issue as opposed to a medical one. But over the next two weeks, he ‘went downhill super fast.”

Casper bounced from doctor to doctor for three months. They threw a phone book of diagnoses his way. Maybe it’s multiple sclerosis, or MS, a disease that ’causes breakdown of the protective covering of nerves,” according to Mayo Clinic. MS can cause symptoms including but not limited to numbness, weakness, trouble walking and vision changes.

Maybe it’s a vitamin D deficiency. Casper scoffed at the thought. No way a vitamin deficiency was causing all this. Then he Googled it, and understood where they were coming from. (“I think I did a pretty good job of not really Googling for a while, but had to a little bit,” Casper joked. “And then it’s like, you know, ‘You’re dead.’”)

So he spent a month taking vitamin D pills. Which did nothing. Great, he thought, another month wasted.

The USOPC (U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee) referred him to a doctor through its partnership with the University of Florida hospital system. After reviewing all of Casper’s information and giving him an EMG (electromyography) nerve test, he diagnosed the 22-year-old with GBS.

‘A lot of people think, oh, I was sick, and I got through it, and now I’m here at the Olympics. Like, ‘What a story,’ or whatever. It’s not over at all.”

Casper takes medication for treatment, changing up his regiment every so often to meet his needs. He started with gabapentin, a nerve blocker. Then ‘a bunch of muscle relaxer stuff.” A few months ago, he started taking carbamazepine, a medication typically used for seizures.

It’s working. For the most part. But Casper didn’t want to risk a different cocktail of medications that’d make him feel worse at the Olympics. He’ll wrap up this season, go home, and see about trying something new this summer.

Once his dexterity started to return, Casper decided to get back into curling. He missed more than half of the 2024-25 season. At nationals last season, Casper and USA Curling alternate Rich Ruohonen, 30 years Casper’s senior, decided each skip would play every other game. Basically load management.

Together they won Olympic Trials, kicking off a team led by American curling legend John Shuster to clinch their spot in Cortina. A shocking feat as every upset is made even more impressive because of how often they had to work with another skip while Casper was away.

‘We’ve got absolutely nothing to lose,’ he said, though that doesn’t take away from the ultimate goal: Gold.

One of the hardest parts of living with GBS, Casper said, is that you can’t see it. No one can.

He wants others living with invisible autoimmune diseases to know it’s OK to lean on people for support. Even if it feels weird or hard. 

Just like a curling game. Casper captains the team, but he has to rely on sweepers Aidan Oldenburg and Ben Richardson to guide the rock to the button. Friends, family and teammates are the sweepers in Casper’s life. They helped guide him to Cortina for a chance at gilded glory.

Reach USA TODAY Network sports reporter Payton Titus at ptitus@gannett.com, and follow her on X @petitus25.

Texas, Georgia are top national championship contenders from SEC.
Big Ten contenders start with Ohio State, Indiana but don’t end there.
Looking for a sleeper pick? Try USC Trojans or longshot Utah.

Can the SEC put an end to Big Ten football’s national championship streak? That quest begins with four SEC teams, although you could make a compelling case Miami of the ACC is the most dangerous threat in 2026 to the Big Ten’s string of dominance.

The SEC runs deeper than either the ACC or the Big 12, though, so it remains the biggest threat to the Big Ten’s throne. And, yes, it is the Big Ten’s throne now. No escaping that reality anymore, unless your head is buried deep, deep in the sand in the Deep South.

On this edition of “SEC Football Unfiltered,” a podcast from the USA TODAY Network, hosts Blake Toppmeyer and John Adams go head-to-head drafting their top six national championship contenders.

Adams gets the No. 1 pick in their draft, which unfolds in snake-draft fashion. Each team may only be picked once. In other words, once a team is off the board, it cannot be picked by the other host.

In the end, four SEC teams come off the board, plus four from the Big Ten, while each host builds out his six-team roster in search of the 2026 national champion.

Drafting 2026 college football national championship contenders

∎ Adams’ first pick: Texas. The Longhorns cleaned up in the portal, and Arch Manning finished the season looking more like the quarterback we expected him to be all along.

∎ Toppmeyer’s first pick: Ohio State. The Buckeyes always produce one of the nation’s most-talented rosters. The schedule is tough, but Julian Sayin, Jeremiah Smith and Bo Jackson are a good start toward a third straight playoff bid.

∎ Toppmeyer’s second pick: Notre Dame. With CJ Carr back as starting quarterback and another accommodating schedule, the Irish are pointed toward the playoff.

∎ Adams’ second pick: Miami. Mark Fletcher and Malachi Toney return as offensive linchpins, and Darian Mensah could be a quarterback upgrade.

∎ Adams’ third pick: LSU. Lane Kiffin’s done it again, with another tremendous transfer class, and he’s proven he knows how to assemble a roster full of fresh faces.

∎ Toppmeyer’s third pick: Georgia. I’d like Georgia even more if it had done more in the portal. Even as is, Georgia is probably the SEC’s best-positioned team for a playoff bid, with only a few major landmines on the schedule.

∎ Toppmeyer’s fourth pick: Indiana. Several key departures, but Josh Hoover should keep Curt Cignetti’s assembly line of good transfer quarterbacks rolling. He’s part of a good portal class.

∎ Adams’ fourth pick: Texas Tech. Mega booster Cody Campbell promised to “double down” after Texas Tech’s CFP quarterfinal exit. When a billionaire doubles down, I buy in. The Red Raiders spent big for quarterback Brendan Sorsby.

∎ Adams’ fifth pick: Oregon. The Ducks’ script the past two years: Look really good until folding in the playoff against the eventual national champion. Will they fold again in January 2027? Maybe, but they’re the best bet at this stage of the draft.

∎ Toppmeyer’s fifth pick: Texas A&M. A tough schedule makes me wonder if the Aggies are ripe for win-loss regression. But, when a playoff team returns its quarterback, it can’t be ignored at this stage. The Aggies need their transfer class to hit to offset notable losses.

∎ Toppmeyer’s sixth pick: Southern Cal. Trusting a Lincoln Riley defense is a fool’s errand, even after the hire of TCU legend Gary Patterson as defensive coordinator. Quarterback Jayden Maiava should keep the completions and the points coming, at least.

∎ Adams’ sixth pick: Utah. How’s this for a shot in the dark? Am I bold or just crazy? Before you answer that, consider how well quarterback Devon Dampier played in the final few games of last season.

Also considered: Mississippi, Alabama.

Eyeing college football’s next champ? Start here

Adams’ roster of national champion picks: Texas, Miami, LSU, Texas Tech, Oregon, Utah

Toppmeyer’s thoughts on Adams’ lineup: I wanted Miami with my No. 3 pick. Alas. That one stings.

***

Toppmeyer’s roster of national champion picks: Ohio State, Notre Dame, Georgia, Indiana, Texas A&M, USC.

Adams’ thoughts on Toppmeyer’s lineup: You’re heavy on the Big Ten. If the B1G’s streak continues, that’s trouble for my team, unless Oregon saves the day.

Where to listen to SEC Football Unfiltered

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Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s national college football columnist. John Adams is the senior sports columnist for the Knoxville News Sentinel. Subscribe to the SEC Football Unfiltered podcast, and check out the SEC Unfiltered newsletter, delivered straight to your inbox.

Let me see if I’ve got this straight, because I’m a little fuzzy on the particulars. 

The most successful FCS program in the modern era, and the third-largest oil producing state in the country have joined FBS football. 

To this I say: What took so long? 

North Dakota State has joined the Mountain West Conference in football beginning this fall, and if you’re looking for some quick analysis, here it is: only Texas and New Mexico produce more oil than North Dakota, the black gold that can change everything in college sports.

Hello, private NIL. 

If there’s one thing we’ve learned in this upside-down world of get yours, it’s money talks and tradition walks. 

Indiana just won a national title. I still can’t believe it, so I’m going to write it again: Indiana, lovable loser of Division I football for decades upon decades, found the perfect coach and won the whole thing.

And is now set up to take over the sport with an elite coach (Curt Cignetti), a billionaire booster (Mark Cuban) and the largest alumni base in college sports (800,000-strong).

Texas Tech, which never before won an outright major conference championship, won the Big 12 in 2025 with a school-record 12 wins. Only a quarterback playing with a broken leg kept the billionaire-fueled ― and black gold-infused ― Red Raiders from doing more damage in the College Football Playoff. 

Duke, my god, Duke, won the ACC with a $4 million-a-year quarterback. And Steve Spurrier wasn’t the coach. 

Why in God’s green earth would North Dakota State not attempt to move up to FBS? 

The Bison — that’s pronounced Bizon, everyone — aren’t competing against the Power conference heavyweights, they’re competing against the rest of the Group of 6 for the one CFP charity spot. 

That immediately changes the calculus of it all. 

You’re not banging heads with established programs, you’re playing — ready for this? — Air Force, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, Northern Illinois, San Jose State, UNLV, UTEP and Wyoming. 

I mean, really? 

None of those nine teams would’ve won 10 of 15 FCS titles from 2011-2025. And more than likely, not more than one ― if that.

Four coaches (Craig Bohl, Chris Klieman, Matt Entz, Tim Polasek) won national titles at NDSU in that 15-year span, a line of succession that’s almost unthinkable in this era of quick-change college football. The plan to win hasn’t changed much from when Bohl built the beast, and Klieman perfected it. 

They recruit players to fit their culture and system, and then develop them to reach their ceiling. Since 2020, eight NDSU players have been selected in the NFL draft. 

The 2025 national champion (that would be Indiana, everyone) had six. Six! 

Vanderbilt had three, Duke had seven, and if you want me to continue this exercise in Power conference draft futility, we’ll be here all damn day. Suffice to say, NDSU knows how to develop players. 

Yet that point brings us to the intriguing intersection of culture and cash, the very thing that could dismantle what NDSU has worked so hard to build. Or make it even more dangerous. 

Because if Polasek — an assistant for 10 years with the Bison before getting the job in 2024 and winning 26 of 29 games — can mold the valuable NDSU culture with a handful of impact starters from the transfer portal, this thing could get big. Quickly. 

Again, you’re not reinventing the wheel, you’re giving the hard-driving 18-wheeler a little more horsepower and a refined suspension with a handful of talented transfers. How do you get those transfers?

Oil money. 

If Texas Tech can do it, NDSU sure can. Lubbock is in the middle of nowhere; at least Fargo is across the river from Minnesota.

Also, the middle of nowhere, but you get the point.

Money changes everything. It breathes life into recruiting efforts, and extends the arm of possibility. It can turn a wildly underrated college town into a hotbed of FBS college football. 

Just like it did in Lubbock. Just like it will do in Fargo. 

It was only a matter of time before this inevitable happened. There was too much good going on at NDSU, and not enough challenge. 

There’s only so many times you can beat the brakes off everyone else, and still be satisfied to do it again the following season. Before the advent of NIL and free player movement, the climb to FBS made no sense for the team no one wanted to see on the nonconference body bag circuit.

NDSU has a 9-5 all-time record vs. FBS schools since beginning Division I play in 2004, including wins over Minnesota, Kansas State, Iowa and Iowa State. But think about this all-telling reality: the Bison have been playing FCS football for 21 years, and have been asked to play only 14 FBS guarantee games.    

There was nothing to gain, and more than likely everything to lose for anyone playing NDSU. Now the FBS has to play them — at least, in the Mountain West. 

If things progress how NDSU has envisioned, the Power conferences will have to deal with Bison cash in the transfer portal, and in a perfect, oil-driven private NIL world, on the biggest stage of all in the CFP.

The most successful FCS program of our time, and the third-largest oil production state in the country teaming up in the new private NIL world of college football. 

What took so long?

MILAN — Ilia Malinin wagged his tongue in joy halfway through his short program in the men’s competition Tuesday night at the 2026 Winter Olympics. He had just completed his three industrial strength jumping passes without a hitch, including two majestic quadruple jumps. Now he was flying past center ice, and his emotions got the better of him, and he was singing along with his music in the icy arena air. He was back, and he knew it.

The 21-year-old self-proclaimed “Quad God” had already lived a lifetime at these Olympic Games. He had experienced the interesting combination of being both tested and, now, rested. The Olympic team figure skating competition had challenged him in ways he hadn’t expected. But he had passed that test, leading the Americans to the gold medal by doing double duty in both the short and long programs when he hadn’t originally planned to. 

“I definitely felt like I was in a better zone this time,” Malinin said after he won the short program, setting himself up beautifully to win a second gold medal here on Friday. “It was, I think I want to call it, Olympic pressure, going out there the first time, hitting that Olympic ice and feeling the atmosphere, it was like, I didn’t expect it to be so much. 

“I mentioned earlier in the week that it took me a little while to understand what really happened, but now that I understand it, I took a different approach today. Really, just take things nice and calm, nice and slow, just relax. Then really just push the autopilot button and just let it cruise.”

An Olympic rookie, he is so much better off having gone through the team experience, which left him with “an incredible feeling,” he said Sunday night.

Now it was 48 hours later, and Malinin was on his own in the individual men’s event. On his own and back to his old self, the skater who has won four consecutive U.S. championships and the last two world titles.

His score? 108.16 points, a healthy five points ahead of Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama, who had 103.07. With a long program likely packed with his record-breaking seven quads, Malinin is back to being the strong favorite to win the gold medal Friday night. How things have changed for him since his shaky short program in the team event over the weekend. 

“I definitely feel like I’ve reached where I want to be for the individual event, and just take a refresh and just nice and slow and calm for that free skate program. … and just let everything happen naturally.”

He now has more free time than he has had all week, with three days off between the short program and the long program (free skate). Asked how he is resting in his spare time, Malinin delightfully subtracted a couple years off his age.

“What would any teenager really do?” he replied with a smile. “I’m not really a teenager, but I feel like one a lot of the time, you know, just watching funny videos or funny fails, like video games and, you know, enjoying the Olympic Village. It’s such a cool place. They have their own gaming room as well. So I go there.”

This is the Malinin the skating world has come to know, a funny, laid back young man who loves to chat, almost always smiles and has the confidence to know how he’ll handle what’s next. For example, after the team competition ended Sunday, he predicted that nail-biter “really set me up for the individual event.” 

Turns out he knew exactly what he was talking about.

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The Seattle Seahawks are celebrating the franchise’s second Super Bowl win with their fans, notoriously known as ‘The 12s,’ in a hometown parade on Wednesday.

USA TODAY Sports is providing live coverage of the parade beginning around 1 p.m. ET. You can watch the festivities live via the embedded video at the top of this page or on the USA TODAY Sports YouTube Channel.

The Seahawks beat the Patriots 29-13 in Super Bowl 60 on Sunday at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California. It marks the franchise’s first Super Bowl win since the 2013 season, when Seattle defeated the Denver Broncos 43-8 in Super Bowl 48.

Buy Seahawks championship pages, gear

What time does the Seahawks Super Bowl parade start?

According to the Seahawks, the parade is scheduled to begin with a trophy celebration at Lumen Field at 1 p.m. ET (10 a.m. local time), followed by the main parade at 2 p.m. ET (11 a.m. local time).

Seattle Seahawks Super Bowl parade route

The Seahawks’ Super Bowl parade route will run along 4th Avenue in downtown Seattle. It will begin at 2 p.m. ET at 4th Avenue and Washington Street, travel northbound on 4th Avenue and end at 4th Avenue and Cedar Street.

The 2026 version of the route is notably different from the 2014 route: it begins at the stadium instead of ending there. The parade route is just over two miles long through downtown Seattle and is expected to take two hours.

The city of Seattle expects between 750,000 and 1 million fans to attend the parade.

For information on road closures, click here.

STORRS, CT − The No. 1-ranked UConn women’s basketball team played Saturday’s game without top scorer Sarah Strong, who took the game off to rest.

‘We just want to make sure any tightness she might feel doesn’t become anything,’ UConn coach Geno Auriemma said. ‘She could have played.

‘It’s the college version of load management.’

Strong is expected to return on Wednesday, Feb. 11 against Creighton at Gampel Pavilion. Strong is averaging 19.2 points and 8.0 rebounds a game for the Huskies. UConn (25-0, 14-0 Big East) is looking to extend a 40-game win streak.

Ava Zediker, who scored 25 in a victory over Marquette on Sunday, is averaging 13.8 points for the Bluejays (12-12, 8-7 Big East).

UConn beat Creighton, 95-54, in Omaha on Jan. 11.

What time is UConn vs. Creighton?

The UConn Huskies plays host to the Creighton Bluejays at 7 p.m. ET on Wednesday, Feb. 11 at Gampel Pavilion in Storrs, Connecticut.

UConn vs. Creighton: Streaming

Date: Wednesday, Feb. 11
Time: 7 p.m. ET (4 p.m. PT)
Location: Gampel Pavilion (Storrs, Connecticut)
Stream: Peacock

STREAM: UConn vs. Creighton

Bea Kim is a 19-year-old newcomer on the U.S. women’s halfpipe team for the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Inspired by teammate Chloe Kim, she is also a passionate climate advocate with Protect Our Winters.
Kim is set to attend Columbia University to study environmental science.

LIVIGNO, Italy – The 19-year-old grabbed the microphone without hesitation, before looking to her right and her left at her older, more experienced teammates.

Assuredness is not something Bea Kim lacks, even if she is the newcomer on the United States’ women’s halfpipe team, which includes Chloe Kim – the event’s back-to-back Olympic champion – three-time Olympian Maddie Mastro and 31-year-old Maddy Schaffrick.

At the group’s news conference in the Italian Alps ahead of their qualifying round at these 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics, the last question revolved around President Donald Trump’s criticism of men’s free skier Hunter Hess over Hess’ pre-Games comments about representing the United States (Trump did not properly reflect what Hess said). It’s a hot-button topic, one that can ignite social media and reach the halls of the West Wing. Shying away would have been a normal response.

Bea Kim didn’t.

‘I think there are a lot of different opinions in the U.S. right now. Obviously, we’re very divided,’ she said. ‘I personally am very proud to represent the United States. That being said, I think diversity is what makes us a very strong country and what makes us so special.

‘I think the four of us sitting here (Monday) are an example of that. We all came from very different backgrounds.’

If that’s not an example of the field Kim is playing, then perhaps it’s her passion for the environment and involvement in Protect Our Winters (POW), an organization that has led her to address the United Nations and speak at the White House regarding climate change. Or that she is bound for Columbia University in the fall. Or maybe it’s the fact that she could be the breakout star of a U.S. women’s halfpipe team that already features one of the biggest names in the entire delegation, who happens to have the same surname as her.

Bea Kim and Chloe Kim, along with Mastro, actually all grew up going to Mammoth Mountain in California and refer to it as their home mountain. Mastro and Chloe Kim have been her role models for a while, Bea Kim said.

“To be able to be on the same team as them, go to the Olympics together and kind of call them my friends has been just so special,” she told USA TODAY Sports in January through her sponsor, Delta Airlines.

The two Kims are not related, though, even if Bea Kim understands why it might be easy for snowboarding casuals to make the assumption. She actually gets a kick that two of her teammates have the same first name – different spellings, though – and that she and Chloe share a last name.

Bea Kim, who is Korean-Japanese-American, attended the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea − where Chloe Kim won her first of two halfpipe gold medals − with her parents, younger brother and grandparents. They spent time in Seoul, South Korea, and also visited Japan for the first time. It’s a special family memory.

“That was, I think, a pretty pivotal moment in my own career of seeing someone who looked like me just do something super incredible and be able to inspire me to kind of go after this career path,” Bea Kim said.

Chloe Kim was 17 at that time, with Bea Kim six years her junior.

“I mean, honestly, when I was that young, I don’t think I realized how incredible what she was (doing),” Bea Kim said. “I knew what she was doing was amazing, but I didn’t realize how young she was to be able to do something like that. And then now that I’m closer to that age, it’s definitely like, ‘Wow, that was insane.’”

In fourth grade, Bea Kim penned a poem shortly after she joined the Mammoth snowboarding team.

‘I am the gold medalist at the 2022 Winter Olympics,’ she wrote in the piece shared with USA TODAY Sports. ‘I cry tears of joy when the gold medal is placed around my neck.’

Bea Kim may have been a little premature in the premonition. But who says she can’t live up to the final stanza?

‘I dream of being,’ it reads, ‘the best snowboarder in the world.’

Bea Kim’s passion for outdoors, sport fuels academic ambition

Bea Kim’s passion for the outdoors and career in snowboarding is as full-circle as it gets, she said. Everything her family did – whether it was camping, hiking, snowboarding or surfing – took place in nature.

The family memories built are unforgettable and eventually led to competitive snowboarding, which led to dropping out of school and starting online school so that she could travel with the U.S. snowboarding team.

Those global treks have shown her the world, but competitive snow sports follow a similar travel schedule year over year, and athletes often wind up in the same places at the same time of year.  

“It’s really easy to kind of see how climate’s affecting all of everything,” Kim said.

From glaciers receding to fluctuating snow levels, it is impossible to ignore. She eventually made contact with the non-profit POW.

“They’ve really opened me up to a lot of new experiences where I’ve gotten to kind of share my story and just talk about climate and the snow sports industry and life as an athlete on the road,” Kim said. “So that’s kind of led me to Columbia where I’m going to study that hopefully.”

Kim’s sport is dependent on the weather – not just snow, either. If the winds are howling, it’s harder for her to do her job. If it’s dumping snow, it’s harder than a “bluebird day” when riders can actually tell the difference between the sky and the wall of a halfpipe.

“And those bluebird days are kind of a little bit further and far between now,” said Kim.

Two summers ago, Kim was scheduled to be in Australia for three weeks for a training camp. But it was the warmest season they had on record in years. She spoke to locals, they had never seen it that warm before. “Crazy weather” prevented the training group from even going up to the mountain, and Kim ended up leaving the camp early because the conditions made it unrideable.

The Olympic halfpipe site in Livigno was supposed to host a test event prior to the Games, but the lack of snow in the Alps nixed the dry run.

“It’s wild,” she said.

Bea Kim’s most crucial opponent? Herself

Bea Kim’s first competition in more than 11 months came at Copper Mountain in December 2025. On Christmas Eve the prior year, she underwent shoulder surgery after a series of subluxations destabilized her arm. The goal, she said, was to tighten the joints and muscles before the Olympic year.

Kim described her week at Copper as “actually a crazy little week.”

It was the first Olympic qualifier. The practice days leading into the qualifying round were tough. She was not feeling like herself at all.

“But once I dropped into the competition, I kind of was just reminding myself, ‘You know how to do this, your body knows how to do this.’ It’s all muscle memory,” she said.  

Kim is the type of competitor who believes the pressure of the competition makes her a better performer.

“It’s always kind of a testament to willpower, I think,” she said.

Kim finished third at Copper, which went a long way to securing her spot on the Olympic roster. To be on the podium in Italy, Kim will have to beat out her own teammates, an impressive international contingent with competitors from Australia to Japan to Switzerland and another opponent she’s quite familiar with.

Herself.

“I often say that my biggest competitor is myself, my own brain,” she said. “I think to make it on the podium, I need to really push myself to my limits and do things that scare me.”

All she knows is that she’ll leave everything in the pipe and won’t finish with any regrets.

“Hopefully that ends up standing on the box with a medal,” Kim said. “So, we’ll see. (I’ll) get back to you.”