Ryan to coach Canadian women's hockey team to 2026 Olympics

HERNING, Denmark — Troy Ryan will coach the Canadian women's hockey team at the next Winter Olympic Games.

The 50-year-old from Spryfield, N.S., and Hockey Canada have agreed to an unprecedented four-year extension, which keeps Ryan behind Canada's bench until Milan and Cortina, Italy, in 2026.

Ryan navigated Canada to both an Olympic gold medal in Beijing in February and a world championship in 2021 after taking over midway through the 2019-20 season for Perry Pearn.

"We want to play for him. We want to do that extra mile for him," Canadian captain Marie-Philip Poulin told The Canadian Press. "When a coach has that pulse of the team, I think it's pretty special.

"We're lucky that he's back with us for a long run now."

Ryan and the Canadian women opened the 2022 world championship Thursday against Finland in Herning, Denmark.

Ryan's extension makes him the longest-tenured head coach of a national women's team.

Melody Davidson coached Canada multiple times from 1997 to 2010 — and to Olympic gold in both 2006 and 2010 — but not continuously as others rotated through the job during that span.

Canada reclaimed Olympic gold in Beijing after losing in a shootout to the United States in 2018, and captured its first world title in nearly a decade last year in Calgary under Ryan.

He spent his first full season at the helm on Zoom calls with players because the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out international competition and halted training camps.

"What he has been able to do with this team in the span of two years, two of the years being the pandemic, but one of them being literally virtual calls, a season that was very disruptive for him, to be able to turn that group around, to be able to perform as well as we did at the Olympic