Nova Scotia hopeful Crosby can return for Team Canada for semifinals

NHL players are competing at the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026, the first time in 12 years that they’ve been on this global stage. In order to provide an inside look at the experience, NHL.com has enlisted former Olympic players, coaches and others around the game to share their insights. Today, Paul Mason, who has coached minor hockey and minor baseball in Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia, for 47 years. He has coached several NHL players, most notably Team Canada’s captain Sidney Crosby.

COLE HARBOUR, Nova Scotia -- If you heard a big collective sigh of relief coming from these parts, it’s with good reason.

We all gasped when we saw Sidney Crosby limp off the ice in the second period of Team Canada’s dramatic 4-3 overtime win against Team Czechia in the quarterfinals of the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 on Wednesday.

Sidney is obviously a special part of our community, and we were all crossing our fingers that his Olympics would not come to an end because of an injury. So, it was uplifting to hear Canada coach Jon Cooper tell reporters on Thursday that he hasn’t been ruled out of the semifinal game against Team Finland on Friday (10:30 a.m. ET; Peacock, USA, ICI Télé, CBC Gem, RDS2, CBC).

Nothing is guaranteed, though. He’s day to day with a lower-body injury. We don’t know what’s going to happen.

But at least there’s hope. And we’re all pulling for him, just like we do for the two other Nova Scotia players: Nathan MacKinnon and Brad Marchand.

I watched the first period of the quarterfinals at home before heading over to a local watering hole. There, you could feel the air come out of the room when Sidney left with his injury. It was like a grey cloud.

Canada was down 2-1 at the time, but Nathan scored a power-play goal later in the period to tie the game 2-2, and we figured we had all the momentum.

It didn’t happen that way.

The feeling of despair crept in when Czechia scored at 12:18 of the third period to go back in front 3-2. As a result, the next couple of minutes were extremely anxious moments. You couldn’t help but to think back to last spring, when Canada got eliminated by Denmark in the quarterfinals of the 2025 IIHF World Championship.

This tournament, however, is way bigger and would have been a greater disappointment.

But Nick Suzuki came through and tied the game 3-3 with 3:27 remaining in regulation. That created an atmosphere that only a huge hockey goal can produce in our country.

Extreme joy, optimism and belief.

Still, the uneasiness in our stomachs continued until Mitch Marner scored the winner at 1:22 of overtime.

The unanimous feeling, by all watching, was a sense of relief and exuberance.

Now, it’s on to the semifinals against Finland.

As a sidenote, there was a robbery at the Big Leagues Bar in Bayers Lake, which is in the Halifax area, near where Marchand played minor hockey.

The masked thieves went into the bar, yet they stole no money.

Instead, they took two framed autographed jerseys. One belonging to Nate, the other to Sid.

In our neck of the woods, it would be like stealing a Picasso and a Rembrandt.

Such is the way these local players are revered here.

Especially right now.