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Czechs nearly ended Canada's Olympic dreams with too many men on the ice

Colton Pankiw
Colton Pankiw
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Feb 18 2026, 7:39 pm
Czechs nearly ended Canada's Olympic dreams with too many men on the ice
Marton Monus/Reuters via Imagn Images

We narrowly escaped what would have been some major Olympic controversy on Wednesday morning.

Canada’s men’s hockey team, who had been red hot through their first three games of Milano Cortina 2026, wound up in a nail-biter versus Czechia.

Canada went down twice throughout the game. They went into the first intermission trailing 2-1, and were then trailing 3-2 late in the third after a go-ahead goal from Ondrej Palat.

Canada was able to storm a comeback thanks to a goal from Nick Suzuki, followed by an overtime winner from Mitch Marner.

That may have been for the best, as Canadian fans would have been irate had this game played out a different way.

Though it was seemingly caught by no one in real time, many started realizing when watching Czechia’s go-ahead goal in the third period that they had too many men out on the ice.

Even with Canada coming back to win the game in order to advance to the semi-final, there were still plenty of fans who were ticked that this went unnoticed in such a pivotal moment of the game.

 

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“And people say the refs were against Czechia,” one user wrote on Instagram.

Though the controversy is gone thanks to Canada’s comeback, it’s not all rainbows and sunshine for Jon Cooper’s squad going forward.

During the second period of Wednesday’s game, Sidney Crosby was forced to exit after being on the receiving end of two big hits from Radko Gudas. The Pittsburgh Penguins superstar remained on the bench for several minutes before heading down the tunnel.

Cooper didn’t have much of an update on Crosby after the game, making it unclear as to whether or not we will see him back in the lineup for either of the two remaining games on Canada’s schedule.

With or without their captain, Canada will be back in action on Friday as they look to punch their ticket to the gold medal game.

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