One of the showcase events at the Winter Olympics will be hockey, where NHL players are back for the first time since 2014 and the world’s best women’s players are competing in the Games for an eighth consecutive time.
What's known: The main arena will have ice that's smaller than what the speedy, hard-hitting NHL players are used to. What's not known: Whether the rink will be fully built with a safe ice surface — seating should be fine — by the time play begins.
Assuming that all gets settled, the competition should be remarkable, with star players like Sidney Crosby and Hilary Knight going for Olympic gold.
Each of the 12 teams on the men's side and 10 for the women have rosters of 22 skaters and three goaltenders, dressing 20 and two and playing 5 on 5 in regulation and 3 on 3 in overtime. The games will be familiar to NHL and PWHL fans: 60 minutes of regulation, divided into three periods, with no ties. If there is not a goal in overtime, shootouts — skater vs. goaltender for five rounds — are used to determine the result until the gold medal game, when play continues with sudden-death 20-minute periods until one team scores. Group play sets the matchups for elimination games.
The North American teams are considered the ones to beat for both men and women.
It is expected to be Knight's fifth and final Games as she and Kendall Coyne Schofield give way to the next generation of American talent led by Laila Edwards. Canada captain Marie-Philip Poulin is set to play in her sixth Olympics and is looking for a fourth gold medal. The Canadians gave up 10 goals — for the first time in national team history — to the U.S. in an exhibition game in December.
Finland is the defending champion on the men's side after winning its first Olympic title in 2022 when pandemic-related scheduling issues caused the NHL to pull out. Canada won in 2014 and 2010, the last two times the world's best men's players participated, with Crosby this time joining forces with Connor McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon.
As with all team sports, Russia is barred from hockey at the Olympics because of the war in Ukraine. That sidelines many of the best players in the world, including NHL career goals record holder Alex Ovechkin and two-time Stanley Cup champions Andrei Vasilevskiy and Nikita Kucherov.
The men’s tournament is scheduled to run from Feb. 11-22. The women start Feb. 5, the day before the opening ceremony, with the final on Feb. 19. Games are set to be held in Milan at the Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena, a new, 16,000-seat venue, and a smaller rink in Rho.
Crosby's "golden goal" to give Canada an overtime victory in the final in 2010 in Vancouver is etched in hockey lore. So is T.J. Oshie's shootout success for the U.S. against host Russia in Sochi in '14.
Poulin had her own OT heroics that year, as Canada tied it late after the U.S. hit the post of an empty net, which would have sealed gold. Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson and the Americans returned the favor in 2018, beating their archrivals in a shootout in the final.
Men's hockey has been a fixture since the first Winter Games in 1924 and actually debuted at the 1920 Summer Games in Antwerp. Canada has won gold nine times (including Antwerp), the most by far (the Soviet Union won seven times), with Sweden and the U.S each winning twice. The American men haven't won since the 1980 “Miracle On Ice” in Lake Placid. The women's competition was added at Nagano in 1998; either the U.S. or Canada has won every Olympic title since and the fierce rivals have met in the final six out of seven times.
AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
FILE - Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon (29) and Utah Mammoth defenseman Nate Schmidt (88) in the third period of an NHL hockey game Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)
FILE - Edmonton Oilers center Connor McDavid (97) during an NHL hockey game, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)
FILE - United States forward Hilary Knight skates to the bench to celebrate her goal against Canada during the first period of a rivalry series women's hockey game, Nov. 8, 2023, in Tempe, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)
CAIRO (AP) — The U.S. military pressed ahead Saturday in a frantic search for a missing pilot after Iran shot down an American warplane, as Iran called on people to turn the pilot in, promising a reward.
The plane, identified by Iran as a U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle, was one of two attacked on Friday, with one service member rescued and at least one missing. It was the first time the United States lost aircraft in Iranian territory during the war, now in its sixth week, and could mark a new turning point in the campaign.
The conflict, launched by the U.S. and Israel on Feb. 28, has rippled across the region. It has so far killed thousands, upended global markets, cut off key shipping routes, spiked fuel prices and shows no signs of slowing as Iran responds to U.S. and Israeli airstrikes with attacks across the region. Missile and drone strikes continued Saturday with an apparent Iranian drone damaging the headquarters of the U.S. tech giant Oracle in Dubai.
The downing of the military planes came just two days after President Donald Trump said in a national address that the U.S. has “beaten and completely decimated Iran” and was “going to finish the job, and we’re going to finish it very fast.” The U.S. and Israel had boasted recently that Iran's air defenses were decimated.
Also Saturday, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said an airstrike hit near its Bushehr nuclear facility, killing a security guard and damaging a support building. It is the fourth time the facility has been targeted during the war.
The agency announced the attack on social media.
Neither the White House nor the Pentagon released public information about the downed planes.
In an email from the Pentagon obtained by The Associated Press, meanwhile, the military said it received notification of “an aircraft being shot down” in the Middle East, without providing more details.
A U.S. crew member from that plane was rescued. But the Pentagon also notified the House Armed Services Committee that the status of a second service member on the fighter jet was not known. A U.S. military search-and-rescue operation continued Saturday.
In a brief telephone interview with NBC News, Trump declined to discuss the search-and-rescue efforts but said what happened would not affect negotiations with Iran.
Separately, Iranian state media said a U.S. A-10 attack aircraft crashed in the Persian Gulf after being struck by Iranian defense forces.
A U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive military situation said it was not clear if the aircraft crashed or was shot down or whether Iran was involved. Neither the status of the crew nor exactly where it went down was immediately known.
An anchor on a TV channel affiliated with Iranian state television urged residents to hand over any “enemy pilot” to the police.
Throughout the war, Iran has made a series of claims about shooting down piloted enemy aircraft that turned out not to be true. Friday was the first time the Iranian public was urged to look for a downed pilot.
Iranian state media said in a post on the social platform X its military shot down a U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle. The aircraft is a variation of the Air Force fighter jet that carries a pilot and a weapons system officer.
An apparent Iranian drone damaged the Dubai headquarters of the American tech giant Oracle on Saturday after Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard threatened the firm.
The attack targeted the headquarters, which sits along Dubai’s main Sheikh Zayed Road highway. Footage obtained by The Associated Press from outside the United Arab Emirates showed damage to the building. A large hole could be seen in the building’s southwestern corner, with the “e” in “Oracle” on a neon sign damaged.
The sheikhdom’s Dubai Media Office, which speaks for its government, said a “minor incident caused by debris from an aerial interception that fell on the facade of the Oracle building in Dubai Internet City," adding there were no injuries.
Oracle, based in Austin, Texas, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Guard has accused some of America’s largest tech companies of being involved in “terrorist espionage” operations against the Islamic Republic and said they were legitimate targets.
Earlier Iranian drone strikes hit Amazon Web Services facilities in both the UAE and Bahrain.
World leaders, meanwhile, have struggled to end Iran’s stranglehold on the waterway, which has had far-reaching consequences for the global economy and has proved to be its greatest strategic advantage in the war.
The U.N. Security Council is expected to take up the matter Saturday.
Trump has vacillated on America’s role in the strait, alternately threatening Iran if it does not open the strait and telling other nations to “go get your own oil.” On Friday, he said in a post on social media: “With a little more time, we can easily OPEN THE HORMUZ STRAIT, TAKE THE OIL, & MAKE A FORTUNE.”
More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran since the war began. In a review released Friday, the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, a U.S.-based group, said it found that civilian casualties were clustered around strikes on security and state-linked sites “rather than indiscriminate bombardment” of urban areas.
More than two dozen people have died in Gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, 19 have been reported dead in Israel and 13 U.S. service members have been killed. In Lebanon, over 1,300 people have been killed and more than 1 million displaced. Ten Israeli soldiers have also died there.
Mednick reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Sylvie Corbet in Paris, Sarah El Deeb in Beirut, Tong-hyung Kim in Seoul, South Korea, and Will Weissert, Michelle L. Price, Lisa Mascaro and Ben Finley in Washington contributed.
Israeli security forces and rescue teams inspect a site struck by an Iranian missile in Petah Tikva, Israel,Thursday, April 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
A boy who fled with his family following Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon sits inside the van they are using as shelter in Sidon, Lebanon, Thursday, April 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Iraqi women hold a portrait of Iran's late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his son Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, during a protest against U.S. and Israeli attacks on multiple cities across Iran, in the Shi'ite district of Kazimiyah in Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, April 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
A woman checks a destroyed house that was hit in an Israeli airstrike in Saksakiyeh village, south Lebanon, Friday, April 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
A bridge struck by U.S. airstrikes on Thursday is seen in the town of Karaj, west of Tehran, Iran, Friday, April 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
