Canada’s Peterman/Gallant opens Olympic mixed doubles campaign with big win

CORTINA d’AMPEZZO, Italy — More than 13 months of waiting proved more than worth it on a snowy Wednesday evening in Italy for Canada’s Jocelyn Peterman and Brett Gallant.

The Chestermere, Alta., wife-and-husband tandem opened the 2026 Winter Olympics mixed doubles competition at the Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium with an emphatic 10-5 victory over Czechia’s Julie Zelingrová and Vit Chabičovský.

The Canadian team, rounded out by team coach Laine Peters and national coach Scott Pfeifer, put together two early steals — one in the opening end and an emphatic four in the second and never looked back.

“ We’ve been preparing for this for a long time,” said a smiling Peterman. “It was nice to finally get out there and throw those first few rocks; yeah, it was fun.”

After the stolen single in the first (which ran longer than expected as the power was interrupted into the venue, dimming the lights and turning off the scoreboards), the combination of a series of Czech misses and perfect draws from Gallant left Canada sitting four behind cover provided by Peterman’s last-rock guard. Zelingrova was unsuccessful on her Hail Mary angle raise, giving Canada the game-turning steal.

“Our goal was really to get a feel for the ice,” said Gallant. “It was curling lots, the speed was great, so we just wanted to be make some precise draws and we managed to do that, especially in that second end to kind of set up that steal. That was a dream start; you can’t get too comfortable in doubles, right? There’s a lot of points to be had and when they get the three right back in the third, it was like, hey, we’re still in this. So we’re just happy with the way we carried it through right to the end.”

Czechia fought back with three in the third, but Canada put together a nice deuce in the fourth on Peterman’s draw to the four-foot. After forcing Czechia to a single in the fifth, Peterman and Gallant employed their power play to score three in the sixth. Being held to a single point in the seventh was enough to prompt Czechia to offer handshakes.

The early power lapse might have rattled some teams playing their Olympics opener, but not Peterman and Gallant.

“It wasn’t unsettling at all,” said Peterman. “I mean, we’re ready to expect the unexpected and a short power outage is totally fine. We just kind of laughed it off and took the time to to chat about what we wanted to do.”

Team Canada will be back on the ice for a pair of games on Thursday — at 8:35 a.m. (all times Eastern) against Norway’s Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten (0-1) and at 1:05 p.m. against reigning Olympic and world champions Stefania Constantini and Amos Mosaner of Italy.

For live scoring, team lineups, and standings for the three Olympic curling competitions, CLICK HERE.

All of Canada’s games will be broadcast on a variety of platforms by CBC, the official Olympic rights-holder in Canada. CLICK HERE for the CBC broadcast schedule.