MILAN (AP) — The NHL not participating in the 2022 Olympics in Beijing opened the door for players outside the league to step up, and the standout turned out to be a 17-year-old prospect.

Juraj Slafkovsky scored seven goals to help Slovakia take home the bronze medal — its first of any color in the country's history at the Games. Less than five months later, the Montreal Canadiens chose him with the first pick in the draft.

Four years later, the NHL's best are in Milan, but so is one draft-eligible prospect who at 18 is the youngest player in the men's hockey tournament. Latvia's Alberts Smits, a 6-foot-3, 205-pound defenseman, is ranked second among international skaters by Central Scouting.

“It’s a great opportunity for me to show off my skills and my game,” Smits told The Associated Press after practice Thursday. "If I want to become better at some point in my career, I have to play in men’s hockey. If it’s this time, then I have to do my best to show off my best game here.”

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — Mikaela Shiffrin isn’t just narrowing her focus for the Milan Cortina Olympics after struggling in Beijing four years ago. She’s cutting her race program in half after two serious crashes since 2022.

The American skiing standout will race only her core events of slalom and giant slalom, plus team combined — which for her is a slalom run, U.S. head coach Paul Kristofic told The Associated Press on Thursday.

That’s compared to the six events she entered in 2022 — when she didn’t finish three races and didn’t win a medal.

Shiffrin entered one World Cup super-G this season at St. Moritz, Switzerland, in December and performed well until missing the final gate. She was pleased by that performance but then didn’t race any other super-Gs.

MILAN - Don Moffatt was living his professional nightmare.

An ice guru tasked with getting the main rink ready for the NHL's Olympic return at the Milan Cortina Games faced plenty of hurdles and an immovable deadline.

Thursday afternoon came as a big relief.

The much-maligned Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena — a headline-grabbing facility for all the wrong reasons because of construction delays and concerns over the playing surface's quality — hosted its first game at the international sporting showcase just over 24 hours ahead of the opening ceremony.

Training and practice sessions were underway a day ahead of the opening ceremony of the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics as mixed doubles curling round robin play and preliminary round women's ice hockey matches began.

This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.

MILAN (AP) — Show respect. Be humble and a good Olympic partner. Keep Team USA athletes safe.

United States Olympic leaders set out goals Thursday for the Milan Cortina Winter Games that arrive during what they acknowledged is “a period of geopolitical turmoil.”

The days before the opening ceremony Friday saw street protests in Milan against a U.S. federal security plan involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, and organizers of the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Games quizzed by African members of the IOC about the visa regime for entering the country.

“We can’t control headlines that are extraneous to the efforts that we have,” said Gene Sykes, an International Olympic Committee member who is president of the U.S. national Olympic body.

LIVIGNO - The Milan Cortina Olympics come in various options, from the winter wonderland that is Livigno to the big city of Milan. Not to mention Cortina d’Ampezzo and several other venues.

Livigno, located some 1,816 metres above sea level and nestled in the Rhaetian Alps near the Swiss border, offers the picture-postcard version of the games.

Getting there is a challenge, but the journey and destination are worth it

From Milan, it's a train and two bus rides. Once you leave the Milan suburbs, you get picturesque lake views and then start climbing.

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

They followed it up with another big win in the evening session. 

The husband-and-wife duo from Chestermere, Alta., never trailed in a 6-3 win over Norway in afternoon round-robin play at the Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium. Canada followed with a 7-2 victory over Italy in the evening.

"A gritty win and there's going to have to be a few more of those, I think this week," Gallant said after the opener. "So that's a good sign."

MILAN (AP) — It appears as if those troublemaking Minions will be taking the Olympic ice after all.

Spanish figure skater Tomas-Llorenc Guarino Sabate said after practice early Thursday that he has received the necessary approval for three of the four music cuts he needs to perform his short program. The only piece missing from his medley is “Freedom” by Pharrell Williams, and the American musician and producer has been sympathetic to his plight.

“They are discussing it,” Sabate told The Associated Press and a few other reporters. “He seems to be OK, but there's problems because he's restricted by his label. A lot of technical stuff. But they are working to make it happen.”

Sabate was optimistic enough to practice his Minions-themed program shortly after 7 a.m. local time inside a nearly empty Milano Ice Skating Arena. The program opens with peels of laughter from the characters before going into music from the film franchise.

TEL AVIV (AP) — Feel the rhythm, feel the rhyme. Get on up, Israel, it's bobsled time! 

A handful of diverse athletes — a pole-vaulter, sprinter, shot-putter, rugby player, and former Olympian in skeleton — will compete as Israel's first bobsled team during this year's Milan Cortina Winter Games, unlikely ambassadors of their diplomatically isolated nation.

Most of these guys had never touched a sled before this season. Their leader, AJ Edelman, is believed to be the first Orthodox Jew to ever compete in a Winter Games. Another founding member of the team, Ward Farwaseh, will likely to be the first Druze Olympian.

Their participation comes at a time when Israel’s presence in international sports has been met with boycotts, bans and backlash over the humanitarian toll of the war in Gaza, which has killed more than 71,800 Palestinians, according to the territory’s health ministry, and devastated the strip. 

MILAN (AP) — The powerful U.S. figure skating squad will have its first opportunity to shine at the Winter Olympics on Friday when the team competition begins at the Milano Ice Skating Arena just hours before the opening ceremony.

The Americans are the defending champions in the event. After they were denied a medal ceremony four years ago in Beijing because of a lengthy investigation into Russian doping, which kept them from receiving their gold medals until the 2024 Summer Games in Paris, so it would be especially meaningful to win another team title at the Milan Cortina Games.

“Looking back, I don't think it was bittersweet, necessarily,” said Madison Chock, who along with partner Evan Bates will perform their rhythm dance Friday. “We're still Olympic champions. We got our medals. But it was different.”

One thing that isn't different: the strength of the U.S. team.