Winter Olympics end with US men’s hockey gold

USA's Hunter Wonders parades with members of his delegation during the closing ceremony of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games at the Verona Arena

(Image credit: Stefano Rellandini / AFP via Getty Images)

What happened

The 2026 Winter Olympics concluded in Italy Sunday with a closing ceremony in Verona’s 2,000-year-old Roman amphitheater. Verona is about halfway between Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, the two host cities for the Games, and people in the stadium watched via video link as the Olympic flames were extinguished in each city’s cauldron. In the final competition of the Games, the U.S. men’s hockey team beat Canada in overtime Sunday to win their first Olympic gold medal since 1980.

Who said what

“Thank you Italy, for these magical Games,” International Olympic Committee President Kirsty Coventry said, in Italian, at the closing ceremony. “You delivered a new kind of Winter Games and you set a very high standard for the future.” If the “opening ceremony emphasized the unprecedented spread-out nature of these Games,” The Athletic said, “the closing ceremony brought them back together.” It “opened with a whimsical tribute to Italian lyric opera,” and included aerial ballet, Italian rock and a DJ set, before ending with a light show, The Associated Press said.

Italy won its highest Winter Olympics medal count ever — 30, including 10 gold — putting it in third place behind Norway (41 medals, including 18 gold) and the U.S. (33 medals, including 12 gold). It was a “Winter Olympics to remember,” with “drama, thrills, moments of hilarity and plenty of gripping medal action,” CNN said. And the concluding “frenetic” men’s hockey final was “an instant classic.”

What next?

The Winter Olympic baton “now passes to the French Alps, which are expected to follow a similar blueprint of using multiple existing winter sports venues in 2030,” Reuters said. But first, the Milan Cortina Paralympics will begin March 6 with an opening ceremony in the same Verona Arena, and Los Angeles will host the 2028 Summer Olympics.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.