Panthers players reveal their surprising Olympic favorites, from impressive skiing to demanding biathlons, and what they found most challenging.
The dust has settled from the 2026 Winter Olympics, and the NHL is all set to resume its 2025-26 season.
It’s always fun when an Olympics rolls around, as so much of us get wrapped up in the pride and emotion of competing for one’s country, while also enjoying some non-traditional sports and events that we generally only see every four years.
For many of us who are hockey fans or players, the tournament including NHL stars and providing some truly awesome best-on-best competition was the highlight.
But that doesn’t mean we weren’t glued to our TVs while watching curling or speed skating or ski jumping or bobsledding.
That’s what makes the Olympics so great.
Now that the NHL season is ready to get going again, THN Florida had a chance to catch up with a few Florida Panthers players who also enjoyed the Olympics from home to see which events they liked the best and which they thought were the hardest.
Interestingly, there was a common thread among the favorites.
“I think the skiing is always pretty cool, and the figure skating is very impressive,” said Panthers forward Luke Kunin.
“I love watching the cross-country skiing,” added defenseman Tobias Bjornfot. “The Swedish women were really good at it.”
No doubt, the most tiring of all the Olympic events, at least from the perspective of your couch, has to be cross-country skiing. What those athletes have to endure is quite something.
And then there are those who choose to add another element of difficulty to an already demanding event, and that’s what caught the eye of Florida’s leader.
“I like the biathlon,” said Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice. “It’s really hard to shoot a gun after you’ve been humping up and down those hills. I don’t know they do that, or how they did it that fast. That was really cool.”
There were other events that included skiing that happened to catch some of the Panthers’ eyes as well.
“I loved the big ski jumps,” said Florida forward Mackie Samoskevich. “All the flips and stuff, I wouldn’t even think about doing that, ever, or even close to that, but it was pretty cool to see all the guys who were able to push the sport and do something that was never done before.
“That, or the bobsled was really cool.”
But what about everybody’s favorite Winter Olympic sport that doesn’t get nearly enough attention outside of the games?
“I was watching a lot of curling this year,” said forward Jesper Boqvist.
Finally!
It would’ve been somewhat disappointing if nobody mentioned curling.
Similarly to what seems like so many of us, Boqvist isn’t an avid curling fan, but found himself drawn to it during the Olympics.
It probably helped that he had a pretty solid squad to root for.
“The Swedish women won gold, and I learned more about it, so that was pretty fun,” Boqvist said.
Now entertainment level is one thing, but degree of difficulty is quite another.
That’s why it felt important to also ask these hockey professionals what they felt was the hardest sport to compete in out of all the Olympic events.
Once again, there was a common theme.
“I would probably say the long distance, up the hill with the skis,” said Kunin. “They just make it look so easy when its got to be one of the hardest things to do.”
“The cross-country skiing,” said Boqvist. “It’s crazy. I don’t get that.”
No arguments here. Pretty much any event that includes skiing is going to be an amazing combination of looking beautiful and easy despite being incredibly dangerous and difficult.
“The slalom skiing, downhill,” Bjornfot said after some thought. “It’s hard.”
“I’ve got to go with the big ski jumps,” said Smoskevich. “They’re so high up there, and I’m so scared of heights, so that’s probably the hardest for me to even think about.”
At the end of the day, the 2026 Winter Olympic experience seemed to be an incredibly enjoyable one for those of us on the spectator side of things.
Even with the time difference, as Italy is six hours ahead of us here in South Florida, nobody seemed to mind the nontraditional viewing schedule.
“I’ve got a 10-month-old, so I was up pretty early,” Kunin said with a smile. “It was nice to be able to throw on the TV and watch something in the background while I was playing with him in the early mornings.”
The two Swedes had a similar sentiment, but for a different reason.
“It was not a problem, I’m used to it from watching Swedish hockey,” said Bjornfot.
“I’m kind of used to it from watching Swedish games and stuff like that,” said Boqvist. “I don’t mind it actually, waking up, grabbing breakfast and watching the Olympics has been awesome. If it was in season, it would be worse because of practice and stuff, but during the break it was perfect.”
Perhaps it’s not surprising that while the youngest of the Panthers also enjoyed the Olympic experience, he would’ve liked a little more going on in the evenings.
“I thought it worked out pretty well, all the games started at 10 o’clock and then were going all day,” said Samoskevich. “You wake up, you’re on break, you’re just hanging out and not really doing much, so there was always something on, which I felt was nice.
“The games ended early. I wish there was something at night, but all day is fine too.”
Thanks for a fun few weeks, Winter Olympics. We’ll see you in four years.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled hockey season.
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Photo caption: [US, Mexico & Canada customers only] Feb 17, 2026; Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy; Niklas Edin of Sweden in action during the match against Switzerland in a men's curling round robin match during the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games at Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium. (Issei Kato/Reuters via Imagn Images)