Team USA skated to a 5-1 victory over Latvia in the Group C preliminary round opening tilt of the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 at Santagiulia Arena on Thursday.

Brock Nelson led Team USA to a commanding 5-1 victory over Latvia in their 2026 Milan Cortina Games opener, scoring twice in a dominant ice hockey performance.

Follow live text, BBC TV coverage, radio commentary, reaction and updates from the Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina.

Team USA men's hockey dominates Latvia 5-1: NHL players are officially back at the Olympics for the first time since 2014, and Team USA's cohort got off to a hot start with a statement win. This could very well be the best team in U.S. history, and they looked like it on Thursday behind two goals from Brock Nelson.

Two NHL teams have more players represented on Olympic rosters at Milano Cortina than any other team in the league.

Andrea Voetter and Marion Oberhofer hadn't won a race this season on the World Cup circuit. They weren't even contenders in many of them.

There were some bruised feelings a year ago, when the four nations selected unilaterally by the NHL in a Russia-less return to international best-on-best hockey did not include the likes of Czechia, which had won IIHF World Championship the previous summer.