Kevin Fiala injury is the latest at the Olympics that could also hurt an NHL team

MILAN (AP) — Kevin Fiala going down with a gruesome leg injury and getting taken off the ice on a stretcher is a cruel reminder of the risk hockey players takeparticipating in the Olympics.

Milan Cortina Olympics Ice Hockey

Fiala had surgerySaturday on his left leg, and he won't play again in the tournament after getting injured when he got tangled up with Tom Wilson duringSwitzerland's game against Canada. Given the likelihood that it's severe enough to end his NHL season, too, it's not just a blow to Switzerland but also the Los Angeles Kings as they push to try to make the playoffs.

"It sucks for him and for us," Kings teammate Adrian Kempe said afterSweden's game against Slovakia. "It's really tough for him personally and for us as a team. You know how much he means to our team back home in L.A. It's just very unfortunate for him that it comes in a tournament like this that we've been looking forward to playing in for so long."

The NHL is backin the Games for the first time since 2014, when John Tavares' season with the New York Islanders was cut short whenhe tore ligamentsin his left knee playing for Canada in Sochi. Owners decided not to go to Pyeongchang in 2018 for various reasons, and losing players to injuries at the Olympics has always been an argument against taking part.

Two decades ago in Turin, six-time Vezina Trophy-winning goaltender and two-time NHL MVP Dominik Hasek tore an adductor muscle, just below his groin, and did not play again for the Ottawa Senators. They lost in the second round when backup Ray Emery allowed 16 goals in five games, and owner Eugene Melnyk in 2021 beforehis death in 2022said Hasek's injury cost his team a shot at the Stanley Cup.

Brock Nelson was on the Islanders 12 years ago when they had to go the rest of the way without Tavares and missed the playoffs.

"Johnny was our leader at the time," said Nelson, who's playing for the U.S. in Milan. "Devastating. You're happy for him to go over there and represent his country on the biggest stage, but to see him go down was tough. And then for us on the Island, you have to try and bridge that gap as best you can."

Nelson knows exactly how Kempe and the Kings feel from that experience.

"Obviously you're never going to replace guys like that — both Johnny and Kevin — but there's opportunity for guys to be had and I'm sure it'll be a group mindset for them to try to overcome it," Nelson said.

The Kingsacquiring high-scoring winger Artemi Panarinin a trade with the New York Rangers just before the roster freeze on Feb. 4 is certainly a boost, but Fiala's absence still creates a void. He's their second-leading scorer with 40 points in 46 games.

"It's really tough," Kings teammate Joel Armia said after Finland's game against Italy. "As soon as I saw it, I was so sad. Yeah, it's not great."

Advertisement

A team spokesperson said general manager Ken Holland and coach Jim Hiller will address Fiala's status when L.A. resumes practice on Wednesday.

The Kings are three points out of the second and final wild-card spot in the Western Conference with 26 games remaining and will attempt to close that gap without Fiala.

"I hope it's a speedy recovery for Kevin," said Kempe, who leads the team with 46 points. "He's an unbelievable player, a great teammate and obviously it sucks to see something happen like that to him."

Kempe, Nelson and the rest of the NHL players at the Olympics expressed empathy over Fiala's injury. They understand anything can happen when they step onto the ice.

"It's hockey: You can injure yourself in a practice, in a game," Slovakia's Martin Fehervary said. "Hockey's a hard sport, and you never know when you can get injured."

Fehervary has played with Wilson in the league with the Washington Capitals for the past five years. Before that, Czechia's Michal Kempny won the Stanley Cup with Wilson and the Capitals in 2018 and found it incredibly difficult to watch the play on which Fiala was injured.

"I think it was an unlucky accident," Kempny said. "I know Tommy very well: a great man, a great guy, a great teammate. He's a guy that he's tough to play against, for sure, but the play last night, I think it was an unlucky play — an accident."

Accidents and injuries happen in every sport, as evidenced byLindsey Vonn's horrific crash up in the mountainsthat broke her left leg. Those involved in hockey at the Olympics do not want to use Fiala getting hurt as any sort of excuse not to participate.

"We're very conscious of it," U.S. coach Mike Sullivan said. "It's a violent game, it's a physical game and you're always going to assume risk. It's the nature of the sport. Everybody understands it. But these guys are hockey players. That's what they do, that's what they love and they're going to play hockey."

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

byAdministrator

in

February 14, 2026

Kevin Fiala injury is the latest at the Olympics that could also hurt an NHL team

MILAN (AP) — Kevin Fiala going down with a gruesome leg injury and getting taken off the ice on a stretcher is a cruel r...

Read More

Seton Hall outfielder suffers gruesome left leg injury while rounding first base after hitting home run

Seton Hall outfielder Justin Ford was forced to leave the game after he hit a home run in the fifth inning of his team's loss to Boston College on Friday night.

Ford suffered a gruesome lower left ankle injury after he rounded first base and was celebrating his home run. As he faced his dugout, his left ankle rolled outward with his foot on the ground and he fell to the dirt.

(Warning: the video below shows Ford's injury.)

Tough break here for Seton Hall's Justin Ford. Hits a go-ahead homer, and celebrates with his dugout, only to blow a tire, and possibly lose his season. Not what you wanna see.pic.twitter.com/3nQ5NekBom

— Division III Benchwarmer (@d3Benchwarmer_)February 14, 2026

Ford's injury was so serious that a stretcher was brought out on the field. A pinch runner was allowed to replace him and score Ford's run from the homer.

B5 | Justin Ford gives us the lead with a two-run homer.Ford injured himself while rounding the bases. Please join us in sending Justin best wishes and a speedy recovery 💙#NeverLoseYourHustle

— Seton Hall University Baseball (@SHUBaseball)February 14, 2026

Friday was college baseball's first day of the season and the two teams were playing in the Puerto Rico Challenge. A junior in 2026, Ford appeared in 17 games as a sophomore with 12 starts. He had a .171 average and his home run against the Eagles was the third of his career.

Boston College won the game 6-4 and will play Houston on Saturday while Seton Hall takes on Manhattan.

byAdministrator

in

February 14, 2026

Seton Hall outfielder suffers gruesome left leg injury while rounding first base after hitting home run

Seton Hall outfielder Justin Ford was forced to leave the game after he hit a home run in the fifth inning of his team...

Read More

Northern Iowa tight end Parker Sutherland dies

Northern Iowa announced that tight end Parker Sutherland died Saturday morning.

Sutherland was a freshman in 2025 and played in four games. He was a native of Iowa City, Iowa.

"I'm heartbroken," Northern Iowa coach Todd Stepsis said in a statement. "No words can express my condolences to [parents] Adam, Jill and [sister] Georgia. Parker embodied everything we look for in a UNI Football Panther. His talent and potential excited us on a daily basis, but it failed to compare to the type of person and teammate he was. His character, humility, toughness and genuine love of others are what champions are made of. While I'm saddened that our time together was short, we will celebrate the bright light that he brought to our football team for the rest of our lives."

On Thursday, a spokesperson for Northern Iowasaid in a statement to the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courierthat "Cedar Falls Fire & Rescue responded to a call at the UNI Athletics facilities on Thursday. There are no further details that can be shared at this time."

Saturday morning,CBS 2 in Cedar Rapids reportedthat "multiple sources tell Iowa's News Now that Sutherland collapsed during a workout that day."

Sutherland appeared in games against Utah Tech, North Dakota, Illinois State and Murray State. He was a second-team all-state player at Iowa City High School as a senior in 2024.

"It is a heartbreaking day for our Panther Athletics family with the passing of Parker Sutherland," athletic director Megan Franklin said. "He embraced the opportunity to play Panther football and represent the university through sport. We are devastated — just devastated. The blessing is that we have a Panther family who will hold the Sutherland family, our football team, and our athletics staff close as we grieve."

byAdministrator

in

February 14, 2026

Northern Iowa tight end Parker Sutherland dies

Northern Iowa announced that tight end Parker Sutherland died Saturday morning. Sutherland was a freshman in 2025 and played in four game...

Read More

At the Winter Olympics, drones have become the breakout star

MILAN — The breakout star of theMilan Cortina Winter Olympicsisn't an athlete.

It's a fleet of 25 drones.

With spotters by their side, goggles-wearing drone operators at these games have daringly flown drones through luge tracks with only a few feet of clearance on either side, shadowed speed skaters around tight corners, and captured downhill skiers against the stunning backdrop of the Dolomites while flying at speeds up to 75 mph.

"We saw an opportunity there to try and bring the coverage of the sports into a new dimension, we believe," said Yiannis Exarchos, the chief executive of Olympic Broadcasting Services. "And especially for some of the winter sports, it was a great opportunity to really show and make people feel what it is (like) actually practicing these sports at this level."

Drones were first used at an Olympics in 2014, and "first-person-view" drones debuted during mountain biking at the 2024 Paris Olympics because of courses that made traditional camera positions difficult. The 25 drones deployed at these Olympics, including 15 "first-person-view" drones, still make up a small slice of the more than 800 cameras used by Olympic Broadcasting Services to capture footage it then shares with its 21 media rights-holders, including NBC.

Yet they are having a moment, making a buzz that goes beyond the whirring sound their fly-bys produce. Demand from journalists for how OBS implemented the drones was so strong that the Olympics brought Exarchos into a large briefing this week.

"Olympic drone pilots might be the most underrated upgrade of these Games,"said one person on X. "The shots are insane."

Said U.S. Alpine skier A.J. Hurt: "It's pretty cool, especially in the downhill when it follows athletes for so long off those huge jumps."

"We are surprised a little bit" by the reaction, said Marcin Grzybowski, a senior host broadcast producer for OBS overseeing the coverage of cross-country skiing, biathlon and ski jumping. "But also (we) expect to impress, to give our Olympic viewers something new, something they like, and something they can be surprised (by)."

The planning to expand the use of drones began more than two years ago, because organizers wanted to find a way to hook casual sports viewers who Exarchos said make up more than half of any Olympics' viewing audience.

Advancements in technology had reduced their size, increased their broadcast capabilities and reduced the lag time transmitting shots via RF signals to broadcast trucks. These drones have been modified for their sport, and come from a number of vendors, including Chinese-based companies, Exarchos said. Weighing between a half-pound to a pound, they weren't added as a gimmick.

"We use a technological innovation only if it adds to the story that we're telling, not just to showcase technology," he said. "If we simply started flying around drones and showing random things, people after the first day would get sick of it."

Of the 16 sports at the Winter Olympics, drones have captured footage in all but hockey, curling, short-track speed skating and figure skating, where the organizers felt traditional cameras, including overhead cameras that move on cables, were a better fit.

Ski jumping has long been a sport watched from below. But at these Olympics, they've been seen from above, as a drone operator — a former ski jumper himself — maneuvers a drone behind skiers at the moment of liftoff, high above the ground. The operator's background in the sport helped develop their plan to shoot the sport, Exarchos said, adding he hopes that more Olympic athletes will become trained drone pilots to enhance the games' coverage.

Long before viewers began embracing the footage, however, organizers needed athletes to get on board, with Exarchos calling their safety his top priority. All drones must comply with civil aviation rules and are required to be flown behind or to the side of athletes to avoid the possibility of an aerial mishap that could endanger a competitor, Exarchos said. Test crashes have taken place; at the short-track speed-skating venue, course marshals have practiced how to dispose of any fallen drone parts and get the course ready for the next run.

The owner of a Dutch drone company, whoposted that he wasamong the pilots flying at the luge track, said he had been preparing for 12 months.

"100% the most difficult job I've ever done, flying a tight space like this 50 times per session consistently without any room for error. Now let's go for 2 more weeks!"

Some Olympic sports allow extra chances for mistakes. But with drone operators, "there isnoroom for error," Jelmer Poelsma, a drone operator at speed skating, said.

It's generally considered easier to operate drones in so-called "linear speed" sports in which athletes move at a consistent speed, rather than a sport like moguls, where athletes speed up and slow down, requiring pilots to do the same.

Poelsma had been flying drones for 11 years before he began training for the Olympics. The drone he uses can't stabilize the image, he said, requiring him to both keep a safe distance from skaters traveling about 40 mph while doing it smoothly enough that producers can get a usable shot. He first tested the drone in Milan two months before the games opened and said he was "not nervous."

"Some of the athletes already get in contact with me, and obviously it was if I could share the footage of them," Poelsma said "They thought it was really cool."

Drones lose their connectivity at different distances based on different conditions, Grzybowski said, but at luge, drones follow the first three turns before flying back to their "base," often for a battery swap after only a couple runs. The drone team stationed at ski jumping has come up with a way to catch the drone, change the battery and throw it back in the air.

"Even better than an F1 pit stop," Grzybowski said.

Grzybowski will oversee coverage of canoe slalom at the 2028 Olympics, and said he's already interested in flying a drone between the slalom course's gates to show "what kind of feeling (it's) like going through all this course."

Their use has been praised by athletes, but hasn't drawn universally rave reviews.

Bea Kim, the U.S. snowboarder, said that drones had sometimes flown too close to competitors. Their presence wasn't distracting to Zoi Sadowski Synnott, a silver medalist in Big Air from New Zealand, but "the bird's eye view of our tricks isn't the best or coolest way to see what we're doing," she said.

Anna Riccardi, the Milan 2026 Sport Director, said this week that organizers had not received any complaints from athletes "that could have led to the non-use of drones."

The noise the drones produce has also been a persistent topic. But between noise-damping wind and helmets, some athletes don't notice.

"When you're watching it, you're thinking there's no way they're not hearing that," Hurt said. "But I have never heard it when skiing."

Austrian snowboarder Anna Gasser said the presence of a drone during her runs was nothing new because her boyfriend already flies racing drones around her when she trains.

"I didn't care at all about the drone," Gasser said. "If it had hit me, I hope they would have given me another run."

byAdministrator

in

February 14, 2026

At the Winter Olympics, drones have become the breakout star

MILAN — The breakout star of theMilan Cortina Winter Olympicsisn't an athlete. It's a fleet of 25 drones. With spotters by their...

Read More

After a narrow Olympic loss, snowboarder Scotty James looks toward 2030

LIVIGNO, Italy (AP) — Scotty James was right. The sun did, in fact, rise Saturday morning, even if it was snowing hard at the halfpipe where he came oh-so-close to living out hisOlympic dreamthe night before.

Milan Cortina Olympics Snowboard

The Aussie snowboarder spent a lifetime trying to reach this moment. When his moment came, he came anagonizing half-turn short of winning the Olympic goldmedal that has eluded him. He said he has every intention of staying in the sport, likely for another run at the gold four years from now.

For now, though, a chance to process what just happened. For an athlete who left home and moved to America at age 12 to see just how far he could go in this sport, a second silver medal was nothing to be ashamed of. That's why, in the aftermath, some smiles broke through the inevitable tears.

"It's OK to be upset, it's all right to cry. It's OK to get frustrated, and it's OK to not achieve exactly what you want," said the 31-year-old James. "Because tomorrow the sun will rise, I'll give the medal to my son, he won't even know what it is, but it'll be a proud moment to give it to him."

As hisdocumentary that dropped earlier this wintershowed, James has it all. He lives in Monaco, has a wife who's the daughter of a billionaire. His son, Leo, is closing in on 18 months old.

That gold medal was, however, the one thing missing — the "elephant in the room" he called it.

It's why the tears flowed freely from the eyes of his mother, Celia, and why his father, Phil, said the evening left him feeling proud, but "a bit flat."

"I don't think people really get the work they put in," Celia James said. "All these guys, but if you're from Australia, you're away from home a lot from a very young age. I think today is probably a day he thought was going to be a day that was the gold, the reward for it all. And silver is good, but I just think for him, it's not going to be the reward he wanted."

Advertisement

James admitted as much.

He'll be 35 at the next Olympics. Japan, which placed four riders among the top seven in Friday's contest, including the man who won, 24-year-old Yuto Totsuka, will only get better and deeper.

In many ways, those riders from Japan have turned these halfpipe contests into an aerial show. They are tremendous snowboarders doing amazing things. James has always been more into the soul of the sport, feeling a really difficult spin or a great grab of the board means as much, or more, than a triple cork.

In his mind, it's a fight worth fighting while he's still healthy and still waking up every day thinking about what else might be possible on that 5-foot-long piece of wood and fiberglass.

Someone asked him: "What is Scotty James' 'Why?'"

He dissolved into tears, and spoke about his family, friends and support staff that have followed him around the world, pursuing his dream.

"It's a loaded question," he said. "My 'why' would be, I want to leave my footprint on the sport, but also the industry. That's sometihng I strive for every day. It's what I get up for. I'm up there for myself and what I can accomplish in the halfpipe. But also to share that with the people who support me."

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

byAdministrator

in

February 14, 2026

After a narrow Olympic loss, snowboarder Scotty James looks toward 2030

LIVIGNO, Italy (AP) — Scotty James was right. The sun did, in fact, rise Saturday morning, even if it was snowing hard a...

Read More