CORTINA D'AMPEZZO - Canadian curlers Brett Gallant and Jocelyn Peterman succeeded in their first true test at the mixed doubles competition on Thursday at the Winter Olympics. 

A 6-3 win over Norway was followed by a statement victory — a 7-2 decision in just six ends — over defending champion Italy. The effort left the husband-and-wife duo from Chestermere, Alta., at the top of the round-robin table at 3-0.

"Every win is huge here because I think there's so many evenly ranked teams," Gallant said. "I think it's going to be a dogfight, especially getting towards the playoffs. It's going be very difficult."

Canada never trailed in the afternoon victory and stormed out with a five-point first end in the nightcap. The emphatic start hushed the partisan crowd at the Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium. 

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO - A comfortable win in the Olympic curling round-robin opener on Wednesday was far from routine for the Canadian mixed doubles team of Brett Gallant and Jocelyn Peterman. 

An arena power outage interrupted play in the first end. Blood from a dead fly was smeared across the ice in the third. A re-throw was required after a pre-placed stone was set in the wrong spot in the fourth.

Canada overcame the challenges in a 10-5 win over Czechia that served as an interesting kickoff to Olympic competition at the Games.

"If things are out of our control, it might be easy to get frustrated a little bit," Gallant said. "But we've been around long enough to know that that's not helping too much. So I was proud of the way we handled it."

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — The 2026 Winter Olympics opened competition Wednesday night with the first curling matches on the schedule in Cortina only for the action to come to a brief halt because of a power outage.

Officials paused the matches at the historic curling stadium when the lights dimmed and flickered and the main lights and heat in a nearby media center went out. Curlers kept sliding on the ice to stay ready and fans cheered when the bright lights came back soon after and play resumed.

Olympic organizers acknowledged the “brief interruption to competition due to an energy-related issue” and noted it lasted approximately three minutes. It snowed steadily all day in Cortina, with more than 8 inches (20.32 centimeters) in some places. The start of the opening luge training session for men’s singles was also delayed a half-hour due to the outage.

The eight teams playing mixed doubles opened the long curling tournament two full days before the opening ceremony for the 2026 Milan Cortina Games. American curler Korey Dropkin said he has been waiting a long time for this moment.

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO - Hockey isn't the only sport dealing with the last-minute rush to get everything prepared in time for the Milan Cortina Olympics. 

The icemaking crew at the Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium has been dealing with its share of challenges, too. 

The four sheets appeared to be in good shape Wednesday for the opening night of round-robin competition after ice technicians cleared some late hurdles as workers continued preparations outside.

"It's really hard to make ice when everything else gets built (outside the rink) because the doors are open constantly, so you're getting outside air, and you can't test (anything)," said longtime curling icemaker Hans Wuthrich, who's serving as a consultant at the Games. "Like yesterday, they were still building these ramps, the doors were open non-stop.