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Switzerland forward Kevin Fiala taken off ice at Olympics on stretcher with leg injury

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Switzerland forward Kevin Fiala taken off ice at Olympics on stretcher with leg injury
Sport

Sport

Switzerland forward Kevin Fiala taken off ice at Olympics on stretcher with leg injury

2026-02-14 08:00 Last Updated At:08:10

MILAN (AP) — Switzerland forward Kevin Fiala sustained a leg injury and was taken off the ice on a stretcher late in a game against Canada at the Milan Cortina Olympics on Friday.

The Los Angeles Kings star went down when he collided with Tom Wilson with just under three minutes left in Canada's 5-1 victory.

Fiala backed into a hit on Wilson near the boards, their legs got tangled up and both players fell to the ice. Fiala couldn't get up and after a stoppage in play medical personnel attended to him.

Fiala was placed face down on a stretcher and his left leg appeared to be in an air cast as he was wheeled out.

“I haven’t seen him yet. I think he went to the hospital. Obviously it doesn’t look very good,” Swiss coach Patrick Fischer said. “Tough moment for Kevin and the whole team, obviously.”

No penalty was assessed on the play.

“It was an accident,” Fischer said.

The 29-year-old Fiala is in his 12th NHL season and fourth with the Kings. He has 40 points in 56 games this season.

AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

Canada's Sam Bennett, left, challenges Switzerland's Kevin Fiala during a preliminary round match of men's ice hockey between Canada and Switzerland at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Canada's Sam Bennett, left, challenges Switzerland's Kevin Fiala during a preliminary round match of men's ice hockey between Canada and Switzerland at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A judge sentenced an 18-year-old who acknowledged killing five people in a North Carolina mass shooting to life in prison without parole Friday, rejecting arguments that he deserved the chance for release decades from now.

Austin David Thompson was 15 during the Oct. 13, 2022, attack that began at his Raleigh home when he shot and repeatedly stabbed his 16-year-old brother, James.

Equipped with firearms and wearing camouflage, Thompson then fatally shot four others — including an off-duty city police officer — in his neighborhood and along a greenway. He was arrested in a shed after a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head.

Thompson pleaded guilty last month to five counts of first-degree murder and five other counts less than two weeks before his scheduled trial.

Thompson, who did not speak publicly in court, was led away in handcuffs after the sentencing. Family members of the shooting victims cried as the sentence was handed down. Thompson’s attorneys announced plans to appeal the sentence.

Superior Court Judge Paul Ridgeway had the option to sentence him to life in prison with the chance for parole after at least 25 years, but Thompson did not face the death penalty given his age at the time of the crimes.

“It’s hard to conceive of a greater display of malice,” Ridgeway said after chronicling the events of that day, adding that Thompson's months of planning and fantasizing before the rampage confirmed he is the rare juvenile offender “whose crime reflects irreparable corruption” and thus required a life without parole sentence.

During the sentencing hearing that began last week, prosecutors revealed the previously confidential contents of a handwritten note with Thompson’s name and the shooting date found at his family's house in the Hedingham subdivision.

The note said the “reason I did this is because I hate humans they are destroying the planet/earth,” adding that he killed James Thompson ”because he would get in my way.”

Thompson “cannot tell you why he wrote that note the way that he did,” defense lawyer Deonte’ Thomas said, noting that he had no history of ecological-based anger. “And he cannot tell you why he ran down the streets of Hedingham terrorizing people that day.”

But “he is not unredeemable, he is not incorrigible,” Thomas added in asking Ridgeway to give him the opportunity one day to tell parole commissioners he could “still be a productive person in society.”

Thompson's attorneys argued that the rampage happened during a dissociative episode caused by medicine he regularly took for acne. A psychiatrist who interviewed Thompson and a geneticist testified to bolster the explanation, but Ridgeway rejected the theory Friday, saying the facts belied the argument.

The judge seemed to account strongly for the prosecution's evidence of Thompson’s internet search history leading up to the attack. They said it included school shootings and was related to guns, assaults and bomb-making materials, including details that Ridgeway said appeared to match his deadly actions.

Nicole Connors, 52; Raleigh police Officer Gabriel Torres, 29; Mary Marshall, 34; and Susan Karnatz, 49, also were killed in the rampage. Two other people were wounded, including another police officer involved in the search for Thompson.

“In the blink of an eye, everything changed for those people and for the people that they left behind,” Wake County assistant prosecutor Patrick Latour said Thursday while urging a sentence with no potential parole. “And the thing that made it change was not some acne medication. It was the defendant’s knowing, researched, well-thought-out, planned, decisive actions.”

Jasmin Torres, the widow of Gabriel Torres and the mother of their 5-year-old daughter, asked Ridgeway last week to sentence Thompson to life without parole, calling him a “monster.”

Rob Steele, Marshall's fiance at the time of her death, said after the hearing that while five consecutive sentences of life without parole were “what we were all hoping for,” Thompson still “ended five lives for reasons that I still don’t really understand in this case.”

Thompson’s parents testified they couldn’t explain why their son committed the violence, calling him a normal, happy kid who did well in school and showed no signs of destruction.

Thompson’s father pleaded guilty in 2024 to improperly storing his handgun that authorities said was found when his son was arrested. He received a suspended sentence and probation.

“We both lost our children, one at the hand of the other. We never saw this coming and still cannot make sense of it,” mother Elise Thompson said last week while telling the families of shooting victims she will “forever be sorry for the pain that this has caused you.”

Deputies lead a handcuffed Austin Thompson from the courtroom in Raleigh, N.C., on Friday, Feb. 13, 2026, after he was sentenced to five life sentences without the possibility of parole. (Scott Sharpe/The News & Observer via AP, Pool)

Deputies lead a handcuffed Austin Thompson from the courtroom in Raleigh, N.C., on Friday, Feb. 13, 2026, after he was sentenced to five life sentences without the possibility of parole. (Scott Sharpe/The News & Observer via AP, Pool)

Elise Thompson wipes away tears in court in Raleigh, N.C., on Friday, Feb. 13, 2026, as Wake County Superior Court Judge Paul C. Ridgeway describes the actions of her son, Austin Thompson. (Scott Sharpe/The News & Observer via AP, Pool)

Elise Thompson wipes away tears in court in Raleigh, N.C., on Friday, Feb. 13, 2026, as Wake County Superior Court Judge Paul C. Ridgeway describes the actions of her son, Austin Thompson. (Scott Sharpe/The News & Observer via AP, Pool)

Wake County Superior Court Judge Paul C. Ridgeway addresses Austin Thompson in court in Raleigh, N.C., on Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (Scott Sharpe/The News & Observer via AP, Pool)

Wake County Superior Court Judge Paul C. Ridgeway addresses Austin Thompson in court in Raleigh, N.C., on Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (Scott Sharpe/The News & Observer via AP, Pool)

The parents of victim Mary Marshall wipe away tears in court in Raleigh, N.C., on Friday, Feb. 13, 2026, as Wake County Superior Court Judge Paul C. Ridgeway describes the victims of Austin Thompson before he was sentenced to life without parole. (Scott Sharpe/The News & Observer via AP, Pool)

The parents of victim Mary Marshall wipe away tears in court in Raleigh, N.C., on Friday, Feb. 13, 2026, as Wake County Superior Court Judge Paul C. Ridgeway describes the victims of Austin Thompson before he was sentenced to life without parole. (Scott Sharpe/The News & Observer via AP, Pool)

Austin Thompson, center, listens in court in Raleigh, N.C., on Friday, Feb. 13, 2026, as Wake County Superior Court Judge Paul C. Ridgeway sentences him to five life sentences without the possibility of parole. (Scott Sharpe/The News & Observer via AP, Pool)

Austin Thompson, center, listens in court in Raleigh, N.C., on Friday, Feb. 13, 2026, as Wake County Superior Court Judge Paul C. Ridgeway sentences him to five life sentences without the possibility of parole. (Scott Sharpe/The News & Observer via AP, Pool)

Rob Steele, center, the fiancé of 2022 mass shooting victim Mary Marshall, speaks to reporters at the Wake County Justice Center after a judge sentenced shooting defendant Austin Thompson to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Friday, Feb. 13, 2026, in Raleigh, N.C. (AP Photo/Gary D. Robertson)

Rob Steele, center, the fiancé of 2022 mass shooting victim Mary Marshall, speaks to reporters at the Wake County Justice Center after a judge sentenced shooting defendant Austin Thompson to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Friday, Feb. 13, 2026, in Raleigh, N.C. (AP Photo/Gary D. Robertson)

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