International Hockey Roundup: Crosby rocks Team Canada jersey, Blueger punches Latvia’s Olympic ticket

There’s not much happening in Pittsburgh when it comes to the Penguins right now — but two players have their names popping up with international news.

In a tweet from Hockey Nova Scotia, Sidney Crosby and Nathan MacKinnon were showing off Team Canada’s uniforms — complete with #87 wearing the captain’s patch.

It appears that Crosby will be assuming the captain’s duties when Team Canada takes the ice at the upcoming Winter Olympics, as he did in 2010 and 2014 which both ended up with gold medals for the Canadians. Crosby is the only player in hockey history to captain teams to victory in all competitions for the Stanley Cup (3x), Olympics (2x), World Junior Championships (1x), World Championship (1x) and World Cup of Hockey (1x).

Elsewhere related to the Olympics, Team Latvia is heading to compete for a gold medal thanks in part to Teddy Blueger.

Blueger recorded the primary assist on Latvia’s game-winning goal yesterday against France. That sent his country’s hockey team to the Olympics for the first time since 2014.

At those 2014 Olympics, Latvia lost all three games to Switzerland, Czech Republic, and Sweden, failing to qualify for the playoff round. Latvia seems to be trending upwards and will be hoping for a better performance this time around.

Pens’ prospect Jan Drozg couldn’t help Slovenia win their way in this week. The teams in the men’s Olympics for Beijing 2022 will be the host country China along with automatic qualifiers based on IIHF rankings of Canada, Finland, Sweden, Czech Republic, United States, Germany, Switzerland and the Russian Olympic Committee. Latvia joins Slovakia and Denmark to round out the 12 teams, which will be divvied up into three groups of four countries for the event.