What to watch in Olympic sports this weekend | CBC Sports

Let’s go through some of those questions in our weekly guide to the key winter Olympic sports events to watch over the weekend:

Should Mikaël Kingsbury still be favoured to win Olympic gold?

This question would have sounded absurd just one week ago. The greatest moguls skier of all time had won the season opener and was considered pretty much a slam dunk to capture his 10th consecutive World Cup title and probably his second straight Olympic gold too. But then Kingsbury placed a shocking eighth in last Saturday’s event, and today in France he settled for third. Japan’s Ikuma Horishima won both competitions, and the 2017 world champion now leads Kingsbury in the World Cup standings. After years of running roughshod over the sport, it suddenly seems like the Canadian star might have a legitimate rival.

Last week, Kingsbury bounced back from his poor showing in the moguls event by winning the next day’s (non-Olympic) dual moguls competition. He’ll have a chance to do that again on Saturday. Watch the men’s and women’s events live at 8 a.m. ET on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Sports app and CBC Gem.

Is anything really separating the Canadian and U.S. women’s hockey teams?

They’re 1 and 1A — the Winter Olympics’ version of the Spider-Man meme. Any time they meet, it’s a coin flip. The Americans won their 2018 Olympic gold-medal showdown in a shootout, and the Canadians took this year’s world-title game clash in overtime.

In preparation for a highly probable rematch for gold in Beijing, the duelling superpowers are currently engaged in a nine-game set of exhibition games they’re calling the Rivalry Series. Canada took a 3-2 lead on Wednesday in St. Louis when Marie-Philip Poulin came through with another overtime winner (seriously, how does she keep doing this?). Three of the five games so far have been decided by one goal, and none by more than two.

Canada and the U.S. are squaring off in St. Louis again tonight at 8 p.m. ET (TSN is broadcasting the game). They’ll play their final U.S. date on Monday night in St. Paul, Minn., before closing out the series with games in Edmonton and Red Deer, Alta., in early January. Then it’s off to Beijing, where they’ll square off in the group stage and likely again in the gold-medal game.

Which side of the podium cusp are Canada’s bobsledders on?

It’s tough to predict how many medals they’ll win in Beijing because they seem to be on the knife’s edge of the podium at just about every World Cup stop. No Canadian sled has won gold yet this season, but four of them are currently ranked either third or fourth in their standings.

The most consistent pilot has been Christine De Bruin, who ranks third in the two-woman event after opening the season with three consecutive bronze medals and then placing fourth last week. Cynthia Appiah seems to be finding her groove in the women’s monobob, which will make its Olympic debut in Beijing. She took silver and bronze in the last two races to climb to third in the standings.

On the men’s side, 2018 Olympic gold medallist Justin Kripps ranks fourth in the two-man event after picking up one bronze medal in three races. Gold and silver have been essentially off-limits this season, with German pilots Francesco Friedrich and Johannes Lochner finishing 1-2 in every race so far. Friedrich is also 5-for-5 in the four-man and will be heavily favoured to win double gold for the second straight Olympics (he and Kripps tied for the two-man win in 2018). Kripps also ranks fourth in the four-man after picking up a pair of bronze medals in the first five races.

This week’s World Cup stop is in Altenberg, Germany. On Saturday, watch the women’s monobob starting at 4 a.m. ET and the two-man at 8:30 a.m. ET. On Sunday, watch the two-woman at 4 a.m. ET and the four-man at 8:30 a.m. ET. They’re all on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Sports app and CBC Gem.

Can Canada keep its grip on ski cross?

Chaos is the norm in this sport, which sees daredevil athletes race four at a time down treacherous courses laced with bumps, jumps and sharp turns. But since ski cross was introduced to the Olympics in 2010, Canadians have been a remarkably safe bet. All three women’s gold medals (and two of the women’s silvers) have gone to Canadians, and Brady Leman brought the men’s gold to Canada in 2018.

Even with 2018 Olympic women’s champion Kelsey Serwa now retired, hopes for another gold-medal sweep in Beijing are high with 2014 champion Marielle Thompson back from a knee injury. Earlier this week, she earned her first World Cup victory in nearly two years, building on her bronze from last weekend. 2018 Olympic silver medallist Brittany Phelan has also reached the podium this season, while Leman took silver on the course that will be used for the Beijing Olympics. Canada also has the defending men’s World Cup champion in Reece Howden, though he’s still looking for his first individual podium of the season.

Watch Sunday’s men’s and women’s ski cross races in Italy at 6 a.m. ET. There’s another set Monday at 5:30 a.m. ET. There’s also a snowboard cross event Saturday at 5:30 a.m. ET. Twenty-year-old Canadian Eliot Grondin was the men’s World Cup runner-up last season, and the bronze medallist at the world championships, but he missed the podium in the first two events of this season. Watch all these races on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Sports app and CBC Gem. For a full schedule off all the live sports being shown on these platforms, and on the Road to the Olympic Games shows on the CBC TV network, go here.

Mikaël Kingsbury settles for World Cup bronze in France

The all-time winningest freestyle skier, Mikaël Kingsbury of Deux-Montagnes, Que., won the bronze medal at the moguls World Cup stop in Huez, France. 2:59

Quickly…

The NHL shut down three teams until after Christmas, and the NFL pushed some games back. All Calgary, Colorado and Florida games are postponed at least until the NHL returns from its three-day holiday break on Dec. 27, the league announced today. Saturday’s Bruins-Canadiens game in Montreal was called off too after the Habs hosted the Flyers in an empty arena last night. The NFL is also scrambling to deal with the fallout from the latest wave of the pandemic. Sunday’s Raiders-Browns game was moved to Monday, while Seahawks-Rams and Washington-Eagles were pushed to Tuesday. Things are changing by the minute throughout the sports world and you can keep up with the latest updates in CBC Sports’ COVID-19 roundup.

Canada won another gold medal at swimming’s short-course world championships. Olympic and world champion Maggie Mac Neil teamed with Kayla Sanchez, Josh Liendo and Yuri Kisil to win the mixed 4×50-metre freestyle relay today in Abu Dhabi. Earlier, another Canadian world champion and Olympic medallist, Kylie Masse, took silver in the women’s 100m backstroke. Through two days of competition at the short-course worlds, where races are held in a pool that’s half the length of the standard 50m, Canada tops the medals standings with three gold and two silver. On Thursday, Mac Neil and Sanchez were part of the Canadian team that tied for gold in the women’s 4x100m relay, while Tessa Cieplucha won the women’s 400m individual medley. Finals resume Saturday at 9 a.m. ET on you can watch them live on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Sports app and CBC Gem. Read more about today’s Canadian medal performances and watch the races here.

Paul Maurice resigned as coach of the Winnipeg Jets. Insisting the players “haven’t quit on me” but that they “need a new voice,” Maurice surprisingly walked away from the lucrative job today. At 13-10-5, Winnipeg is three points out of a playoff spot heading into tonight’s game vs. Washington. This was Maurice’s ninth season with the Jets. His deepest playoff run was a trip to the Western Conference final in 2018. The 54-year-old doesn’t appear to have another job lined up. At his farewell press conference today he said the pandemic stripped him of some of his passion for the game. Read more about Maurice’s departure here.

You’re up to speed. Have a good weekend.