Team Switzerland has ‘a lot of confidence,’ primed to win Olympic medal

MILAN -- Team Switzerland is no longer just happy to be here.

"We want to poke the bear, there's no question about that," forward Nino Niederreiter said. "I don't think we have to hide at all."

Switzerland played in the past four Olympics that featured NHL players and finished as high as sixth in 2006, when it upset Canada in the preliminary round.

Roman Josi said that's a memory from 20 years ago that he will never forget and that it helped fuel his love of the Olympics, his passion to one day get here to represent his country.

"That was amazing as a kid watching that," the Nashville Predators defenseman said.

Now he's here at the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026, part of a Swiss team that feels it can do something bigger and greater for hockey in the country than just upsetting a global hockey superpower in the preliminary round only to finish sixth out of 12 teams.

This time, the Swiss, with 10 NHL regulars and 17 players with NHL experience on the roster, feel they're good enough to compete for a medal.

It would be the country's first at the Olympics since taking bronze in 1948.

Switzerland opens the preliminary round in Group A against France at Milano Santagiulia Ice Arena on Thursday (6 a.m. ET; Peacock, CBC Gem, SN). It plays Canada on Friday and Czechia on Sunday to finish out the preliminary round.

"I mean, that's the goal, obviously, and we know what we're up against," Josi said of winning a medal. "We know the teams that are coming here, the players that are here, but I think we can have a lot of confidence in our game. Obviously, this is a different beast than World Championships, but we've played some really good World Championship tournaments and got some momentum. We know what we're up against, but we have a lot of confidence in our team."

Switzerland brought home the silver medal from the past two IIHF World Championships, losing 2-0 to Czechia in the gold medal game in 2024 and 1-0 in overtime against the United States last year.

Many of the same NHL players who were part of those teams are on the Olympic team, including Josi, Niederreiter of the Winnipeg Jets, Nico Hischier, Timo Meier and Jonas Siegenthaler of the New Jersey Devils, Kevin Fiala of the Los Angeles Kings, J.J. Moser of the Tampa Bay Lightning, Akira Schmid of the Vegas Golden Knights and Philipp Kurashev of the San Jose Sharks. They're joined here by St. Louis Blues forward Pius Suter.

But Josi and Kurashev didn't play in the Worlds last year. Meier and Moser weren't in the tournament in 2024. Suter didn't play in either of the past two World Championships.

"It's kind of the first time that we're all together," Josi said. "Obviously, we've got some really good World Championships, but there's always a couple guys missing. So, yeah, this really is the first time we're all playing together."

Beyond the 10 NHL regulars are another seven Swiss players who have previously played in the NHL; goalie Reto Berra, defensemen Dean Kukan and Tim Berni, and forwards Denis Malgin, Sven Andrighetto, Christoph Bertschy and Calvin Thurkauf.

"The last couple of years I feel like the mindset shifted a little bit in Switzerland," Josi said. "When I started playing World Championship it was always we've got to make it to quarters somehow and then we'll see, maybe we'll get an upset, you never know. The last couple of years at the Worlds, the quarters was the first step and then most of the time you were competing for a medal. That's a big step for Swiss hockey. Obviously, this is the Olympics and the teams are a little bit different, but there's a lot of confidence now."

That confidence comes from chemistry.

The Olympic team features 19 players who were part of the 2025 team that took silver at World.

"This group is tight," Swiss coach Patrick Fischer said. "We went through a lot of things together. It's been 7-8 years a lot of the guys have been together. We are good and we know this. That's a process of five, six, seven, eight years ago where we didn't really know what we are, who we are, what is our DNA. Now we know."

Fischer explained that the Swiss DNA is to "attack."

"Speed, intensity and we want to go forward," he said. "That's how we have had success and that's not going to change. We don't like to play skating backwards and holding on. We can and we can play very good defense. … The strength of a team or of a human being is knowing his strength and getting it out there. If it's France, if it's Czechia or if it's Canada it doesn't really matter to us, we play our game. That's the only way we have been going and I think it's proven that it's the right way."

Proving it in a best-on-best tournament like the Olympics presents a far greater challenge.

The Swiss believe they're up for it.

"We don't have to do anything special," Fischer said. "We just have to play a good hockey game to win -- against anybody."