The Italian men’s national ice hockey team finished 12th at Milano Cortina 2026 in their first appearance at the Olympics since 2006, but team captain Thomas Larkin hopes the result can be a starting point for growth of the sport in the country.
Larkin joined First Up on TSN1050 on Tuesday to discuss his experience the tournament and the future of the sport of hockey in Italy.
“The Italian national team’s always been close to my heart,” Larkin said. “I did the junior programs, the under-18s, and I’ve been on the men’s team since I was a freshman in college. So this is year... I think 16?”
The 35-year-old Larkin has played professional hockey in Germany in the Deutsche Eishockey League for the past 10 years after getting his start playing stateside. Larkin was drafted in the fifth round (137th overall) of the 2009 NHL Entry Draft by the Columbus Blue Jackets, but never played above the AHL level before leaving for the KHL in 2015.
None of the 25 players on the Italian team had any NHL experience, though many are dual-nationality Americans and Canadians that are playing in Europe now.
Italy opened their tournament against Sweden - a team with a complete roster of NHL players, that was among the favourites to medal - and actually scored the opening goal in that game to take a lead.
“You look at the rosters - we don’t have any NHL guys,” Larkin said. “Italy’s a very small country hockey-wise. I think the whole country has less than 50 rinks, which, you guys can probably tell me, there are probably suburbs in Toronto with more rinks than that.
“We’re very proud of our hockey, but in terms of the wealth of talent on the roster, compared to a team like Sweden, it’s scary to look at. Our goalies gave us a chance, first and foremost, our goalies gave us a chance to be in these games. We knew we were going to get some chances with the smaller ice and bounces happening the way they do, but we never expected to be leading in the first period like we did, and when my good friend Luca Frigo scored that first goal, it was just absolute pandemonium in the building to go up against Sweden.”
Frigo opened the scoring at the 4:14 mark to a raucous cheer from the sold-out stadium. It was Italy’s first appearance at the Olympics since 2006 - which was the last time Italy hosted the games and was guaranteed a spot.
“It was an amazing experience from a pride perspective,” said Larkin. “It’s tough going into these tournaments when people ask you what the expectations are when you know ... we want to win games, but you also have to be pragmatic and see the rosters that we have. What we can control is the effort and playing as a team and against Slovakia we were close there too, the game ended 3-2 and they made it to the bronze-medal game. I’m very proud of our team and what we were able to show because the odds were stacked against us.”
Italy’s best finish at the Olympics came in 1956, when they hosted at Cortina d’Ampezzo and finished seventh place. The country has qualified for men’s hockey 10 times, and finished better than ninth just twice.
Past results and the talent on this year’s team forced Larkin to be realistic about his expectations, as well as his goals for this tournament - the veteran is approaching the twilight of his career, but sought to play with the goal of growing the sport.
“One of our strong suits is that we have a very small group of players to choose from,” Larkin said. “It’s our weakness that we don’t have [more] depth, but at the same time, I’ve played with some of these guys for 15 years. I’ve known some of these guys my whole life. We’re very tight-knit.
“Everybody cares about not just Italy but Italian hockey. Our goal from the beginning was that we can’t be using the Olympics as the end goal. Once you get the honour of going to the Olympics and representing Italy, it comes [with a] responsibility that we want the Olympics to be a springboard to develop hockey in our country.”
Larkin was born in England and grew up in Italy, learning to play hockey there before going to the United States. He’s aware of the fact that Italian hockey is going to have to rely on dual-nationality and international players.
“For us it really was an aspect of ‘alright, we want guys that care about not just attending the Olympics and being there,’ but we really wanted guys that care about Italian hockey, have dedicated themselves to it and see it in a larger context,” Larkin said. “We want this to be the start of the growth of Italian hockey, not the end goal for players to come, experience it and leave.”
“We do have a lot of players that were born outside of the country, but that’s sort of the story of Italy, we have pockets of Italians around the world that also care about their Italian heritage and being Italian, and that’s something we’ve always leaned on not just in hockey but in general.”
