A Marauders guide to the Winter Olympics

The Winter Olympics can spark excitement, national pride, and – at times – baffled looks.  

Is that a sport? What’s biathlon? How is this scored?  

If you’re among those who are tuning in to sports that you only watch every four years – and feeling a little confused about how they work – you’re not alone.  

We spoke to Marauders who compete in curling, figure skating, hockey and Nordic skiing. Here, they kindly explain how these sports are scored, who they’re most excited to cheer on, and what to keep in mind as you watch Team Canada speeding across ice and snow over the next two weeks. 

Figure skating

Team Canada has 12 athletes competing across four disciplines in figure skating at Milano-Cortina. Two of those athletes are McMaster students: Madeline Schizas and Trennt Michaud.  

One of the most unique aspects of figure skating at the Olympics is that athletes compete in both a team event and individual events. “That’s pretty impressive, how many times they’re expected to go out there and get set up and get themselves back in that mentality,” said Calie Williams, co-captain of McMaster’s Varsity Figure Skating Team.  

Figure skating is also a unique sport in that you’re scored on not just the technical skill, but the aesthetics of your performance, said Rian Cocchetto, team co-captain. “A lot of sports, it’s very skill-based, like, ‘Do this slip’ or ‘Put the puck in the net.’ And you don’t really have to think about what you look like doing it… Figure skating, you’re being scored on how you lift your face.”  

One thing Williams loves about skating is how many disciplines there are. Ice dancing is historically based on ballroom dancing, with two people performing a rhythm dance based on an assigned theme. Pairs skating also has two people, but with a whole different skill set as they perform in unison. They often work on the same program for years, which will include throws, lifts, and spirals. It’s known as the most dangerous discipline in figure skating (there’s a move called the “death spiral”).  

Singles skaters perform alone on the ice, with an exceptional number of jumps that seem to defy gravity. There’s also been a push to include synchronized skating in the Olympics – it will be a part of the Youth Olympic Games for the first time in 2028 – where up to 16 skaters perform on the ice at once.  

This year, Cocchetto and Williams are most excited to watch Schizas and Michaud compete. Both have gotten to know Schizas on campus. Cocchetto also used to compete against Lia Pereira, Michaud’s skating partner, before Pereira switched from singles to pairs skating.  

It definitely adds another level of interest to watch someone who goes to your school at the Olympics. “That’s really exciting for us.”  

Curling 

Canada is represented at Milano-Cortina with a women’s curling team and a men’s curling team.  

We spoke with Maggie Fitzgerald and Clara Dissanayake, members of McMaster’s women’s curling team. The team recently placed silver at the OUA championships and are heading to the USports finals in Saskatoon next week.  

A lot of people don’t understand the strategic side of curling, Fitzgerald said. “People kind of think, ‘Oh, you chuck some rocks down a sheet of ice and see what happens…’ but there is a lot of strategy. It takes a lot of thinking ahead and you have to really plan, there’s a lot of moving parts, a lot of angles. There’s a lot more depth to it than people think.”  

With only four players on the ice at a time, team dynamics are important. “All four people on the sheet are always involved at the same time,” Fitzgerald said.  

One person throws, two sweepers manage the rock, and the fourth person is directing all the play. “It’s definitely a very tight-knit team sport.” 

The curling teams are some of Canada’s strongest gold-medal contenders at Milano-Cortina. 

“Our women’s fours team, Team Homan, they’ve been No. 1 in the world for I think at least two years now,” said Dissanayake. “They’re an incredible group of people and they’re all from Ontario, so some hometown pride. And then our men’s team, Team Jacobs, is also really incredible.”  

Hockey 

Team Canada’s men’s hockey team is the gold-medal favourite this year; the women’s team is in a heated rivalry with the United States and expected to make it to the finals. 

We spoke with Madeline Wagstaff and Sinead O’Neill-King, club presidents of McMaster’s women’s hockey team, about what to know as you watch these games.  

Olympic rinks are wider than the standard North American hockey rinks. That opens things up, especially on the power play, said Wagstaff. “You do have more space… so you should be able to see some of the best players in the world kind of have some more room to skate and make some plays.” 

This year also marks the return of NHL players at the Olympics. While professional athletes have been allowed in Olympic competition since 1988, NHL players haven’t participated since the 2014 Winter Games, due to issues around travel costs, marketing rights and scheduling. Athletes from the PWHL, which had its first season in 2023-2024, are also on Team Canada this year.  

“The talent is a combination of all the best PWHL and NHL players come together,” said O’Neill-King, “So it’s pretty spectacular hockey to watch.”  

Cross-country skiing

Team Canada has 12 athletes competing in cross-country skiing at Milano-Cortina. This is the first Olympic Winter Games where men and women will race the same distances.  

While McMaster doesn’t have a cross-country ski team, we do have a Nordic ski team.  

What’s the difference? Nordic skiing is an umbrella term for any skiing with a free heel, including alpine touring, telemark skiing, and cross-country skiing. Unlike alpine touring and telemark, cross-country skiing mostly takes place on flat terrain.  

Biathlon – which is considered a distinct sport at the Olympics – combines cross-country skiing with rifle shooting. The highly technical sport pushes athletes’ aerobic limits in the high-intensity cross-country ski, and then asks them to instantly calm down as they shoot at targets 50 metres away. Missing targets results in time penalties or having to ski a penalty loop with the clock running.  

One thing that’s unique about Nordic skiing is that it doesn’t have universal or standard time benchmarks the way other sports do. “If you think of cross-country [running], there’s times that everyone’s hitting, or records,” said Luke Hendricks, a member of McMaster’s Nordic Skiing team. “Skiing is really reliant on conditions.”  

That can include wind, brightness, and even the temperature of the snow – colder snow generally means more friction on your skis. “No one really talks about their fastest 5K because it totally depends on the course, the day.”  

Competitions are run as races, with either interval starts or mass starts. It might look smooth, but it’s an intensely physical sport, said Claire Stephen, another member of the team. “Imagine you’re running or doing a cross-country race, but you’re using every single muscle in your entire body.”  

McMaster’s team has been watching the Olympics avidly, streaming the Games while away at races for their own season. They’re excited to watch Canada’s strong talent this year, including Xavier McKeever, Sonjaa Schmidt – and Stephen’s brother, Tom Stephen, who is making his Olympic debut.  

Team Canada’s Katherine Stewart-Jones is from the same home club near Ottawa as Marika Wechsler, one of McMaster’s skiiers. 

“Cross-country skiing is a super tight-knit community,” said Wechsler. If you’ve been involved in the sport for a while in Canada, most people are only one or two degrees of separation away from each other, she said.  

“It’s very exciting to see people that you’ve seen around, or seen at your races, be so successful on a world level.”