'Very exciting': Canadian athletes happy see NHL players back at Winter Olympics

Ivanie Blondin remembers the moment Sidney Crosby walked through the door.

Canada had table tennis set up in the country's athlete lounge at the 2014 Olympics. The hockey icon picked up a paddle. Blondin did the same.

"I was really young, but you always get those star-struck moments," said the long-track speed skater from Ottawa. "I couldn't even get a word out. I just started playing with him, and I just was like, 'Holy crap, what just happened?"'

Blondin and the rest of Canada's top high-performance winter athletes will once again share space on sports' biggest global stage as the NHL returns to the Games in 2026 following a 12-year absence.

Men's hockey will, almost undoubtedly, take up plenty of oxygen. A lot of the focus will be on the likes of Crosby and Connor McDavid as they pull on the red Maple Leaf in Milan.

So, will all the attention afforded hockey's stars, who previously participated at five Olympics between 1998 and 2014, steal some of the other competitors' thunder?

"I don't think they're going to overshadow," Blondin said. "If anything, it's going to bring the mood up."

Meet Canada's 2026 men's Olympic hockey team

Canadian pairs figure skating champion Trennt Michaud agrees — and won't be shy when he gets to the Olympic Village.

"I want to see Crosby," said the Trenton, Ont., product. "He's Captain Canada for a reason."

Canadian Olympic Committee CEO David Shoemaker doesn't see NHLers being back as anything other than a positive.

"The Canadian men's hockey team will garner a ton of attention, as it should," he said. "We have the greatest hockey players in the world. But if people haven't already realized it, it means that our Canadian women's hockey team will get a ton of attention.

"Our hockey players