July 21, 2025
Bob Frid/Imagn Images
Flyers head coach Rick Tocchet already has familiarity with Travis Sanheim and Travis Konecny from their time together with Team Canada during the 4 Nations Face-Off.
Rick Tocchet will be returning to Team Canada's staff as an assistant to head coach John Cooper for the 2026 Olympics, Hockey Canada announced on Monday.
The Flyers' head coach is being kept on board for Canada from the NHL's 4 Nations Face-Off from back in February, along with Cooper's (Tampa Bay Lightning) other assistants, Bruce Cassidy (Vegas Golden Knights), Peter DeBoer (formerly of the Dallas Stars), and Misha Donskov (also formerly of Dallas).
With a loaded roster led by Canadian superstars Connor McDavid and Sidney Crosby, that Canadian team won gold at 4 Nations in what represented the first best-on-best international hockey tournament in years.
The Canadian team also featured Flyers top defenseman Travis Sanheim and leading winger Travis Konecny, who each got boosted onto a big stage with the tournament and started to get Tocchet familiar with the two months ahead of the sequence of events that led to his hiring as the Flyers' next head coach in May.
The 2026 Olympics will be in February in Italy, and NHL players are set to return to the winter games for the first time since 2014.
The 4 Nations Face-Off set the stage for the players' Olympic return, and also offered a preliminary look at what the rosters for Canada, the U.S., Sweden, and Finland could look like.
With Tocchet staying on Canada's staff, and Sanheim and Konecny already having broken into the Team Canada picture, at least a couple of Flyers are likely to be in the international fray.
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