Penguins Captain Sidney Crosby will represent Team Canada at the 2026 IIHF World Championship, it was announced today by Hockey Canada.
Crosby joins defenseman Parker Wotherspoon, Jason Spezza and Kyle Dubas, who are serving on Canada’s leadership group, and Strength and Conditioning Coach Sean Young, who is assuming his same role, on Team Canada. This year’s World Championship will be held from May 15-31 in Zurich and Fribourg, Switzerland.
This will mark Crosby’s fourth time representing Team Canada at the World Championship (2006, ’15, ‘25) and will be his 11th time skating for Team Canada at the international level, most recently captaining Canada to a silver medal at the 2026 Olympic Games.
The Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia native is the 26th member of the Triple Gold Club, winning a Stanley Cup (2009, ’16, ’17), Olympic Gold (2010, ’14) and World Championship (2015). Crosby is the only member of the Club to have captained all three teams to their respective titles and was just the ninth Canadian to be a member of the Triple Gold Club. Known for scoring the gold-medal winning overtime goal against the United States at the 2010 Olympic Games, referred to as the “Golden Goal”, Crosby has won gold medals at every international tournament for Team Canada including the 4 Nations Face-Off (2025), World Cup of Hockey (2016), World Championship (2015) and World Junior Championship (2005).
Crosby recently concluded his 21st NHL season with the Penguins, recording 29 goals, 45 assists and 74 points in 68 games, leading his team in points, power-play goals (10) and game-winning goals (4). Crosby led his team in scoring for his franchise-record 16th time in his career and moved up to seventh place on the NHL’s all-time scoring list (1,761). His 21 point-per-game seasons are the most such seasons in NHL history.
Below is Team Canada’s preliminary round schedule. The 2026 World Championship will be broadcast on NHL Network and ESPN+.
Date Opponent Time (ET)
May 15 Sweden 10:20 AM
May 16 Italy 10:20 AM
May 18 Denmark 10:20 AM
May 21 Norway 10:20 AM
May 22 Slovenia 10:20 AM
May 24 Slovakia 2:20 PM
May 26 Czechia 2:20 PM
