Six New York Sirens’ players will represent four nations at the 2026 Winter Olympics’ women’s ice hockey tournament that will take place in Milan, Italy.
- Sarah Fillier- Canada
- Kayle Osborne- Canada
- Kristin O’Neill- Canada
- Kristýna Kaltounková- Czechia
- Maja Nylen Persson- Sweden
- Nicole Vallario- Switzerland
The number of players that the Sirens are sending to the Winter Olympics is the fourth-most of any Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) club. The Montreal Victoire lead the way with nine, the defending Walter Cup champions, the Minnesota Frost follow with eight, and the Boston Fleet come in third with seven.
Let’s find out more about the hockey players representing the Sirens at the upcoming Winter Olympics.
Sirens Rookie Looking to Make Noise at First Olympics
Rookie forward, Kristýna Kaltounková, 23, will be participating in her first Olympics, one year after making her national team debut for Czechia at the 2025 IIHF Women’s World Championships.
Last April at the Worlds, Kaltounková co-led her nation with six points in seven games and was named to the 2025 IIHF Women’s World Championship All-Star team. The former Colgate University standout has quickly become one of the PWHL’s brightest young stars. Kaltounková currently leads the PWHL with 11 goals through just 16 games this season.
Despite having one of the best players in the world on their side, Czechia are underdogs compared to the USA and Canada. They have only qualified for two Winter Olympics in their history (2022 and 2026) and finished seventh in the women’s ice hockey tournament at the 2022 Winter Games. However, the Czechs lost 4-3 to Finland in the bronze medal game and finished fourth out of 10 teams at last year’s World Championships.
Kaltounková touched on what she gained from her first major international tournament.
“I learned that I enjoy the games against the United States and Canada the most and that drives me so much. And when something drives me, I can sense that the locker room goes with me, and so that’s something that’s very exciting…I want to be compared to the best teams in the world. So, what I learned from Worlds was that I thrive in the biggest games of the tournament which is a really, really good sign.”
Three Sirens Named to Defending Gold Medalists’ Roster
Three Sirens were named to the roster of the defending Olympic gold medalists, Canada: forward, Sarah Fillier, 25 goaltender, Kayle Osborne, 23, and forward, Kristin O’Neill, 27.
Canada may have beaten the United States in the 2022 Olympic women’s hockey final, but the Americans have emerged as favorites to win this year after sweeping Canada four games to none in the 2025 Rivalry Series.
Canada will be in Group A with the United States and O’Neill is looking forward to the challenge of facing the favorites at the upcoming Winter Olympics.
“I honestly think it’s one of the greatest rivalries in women’s sports and sports in general. There’s a lot of passion that comes with the rivalry and it’s honestly so fun—it’s why we play hockey—to get to play in these games so I think just the opportunity to get to play them again this season is honestly cool and exciting to me.”
This year will be former Princeton Tiger, Sarah Fillier’s second time participating in the Winter Olympics and the question is can she top her performance from 2022, where she finished second in the tournament with eight goals? The former first-overall PWHL draft pick may have gotten off to a slow start in the goal scoring department this season with one goal through 16 games, but her nine assists are tied for second-most in the PWHL.
Fillier also comes into this year’s women’s hockey tournament with four years of senior national team experience having won three Gold medals and one Silver at four previous World Championships with Canada.
Fillier described what she’s looking forward to experiencing at her second Olympics.
“I’m so excited and it’s been kind of weird this year with, three of us getting named and we still have a few more games to play with the Sirens so trying to compartmentalize with what we’re trying to do with New York right now and then be excited to go over to Milan with all the team Canada girls but it’s cool and it’s kind of strange too because my first Olympic experience was during COVID and it was locked down and pretty tight security; friends and family weren’t there so I’m excited to experience it and have all my family over there, and obviously to get to share this with Oz (Kayle Osborne) and Kristin (O’Neill) is pretty special.”
In addition to Fillier, Canada chose the Sirens’ current starting goaltender, Kayle Osborne, 23, to be one of three goalies on their Olympic roster. In her second PWHL season, Osborne has exuded confidence and has the numbers to back it up; She has the fourth-lowest goals-against-average (GAA) in the league this season and the third-most wins (seven) over 15 starts.
Osborne touched on what’s been the secret to her success this season in the PWHL this season.
“We have a great coaching staff here in New York and my goalie coach, Gord who helps prepare me for every time we take the ice and it’s helped grow my game and it’s helped a tremendous amount playing in this league.”
Last but not least of the Canadian trio is the eldest, Kristin O’Neill. In her first season in New York but sixth as a professional, O’Neill has four points and leads the team with a 57.7 won face-offs percentage (WF%). This will be the veteran’s first Olympics, but she has won three medals at the World Championships with Canada in the past.
O’Neill described how the growth the PWHL has made over the past two years has helped players land on the radar of national team scouts.
“It’s changed a lot since the last Olympics. We have so much more visibility and we’re playing so many more games, so I think it’s just an even greater opportunity for everyone to get a more level playing field in terms of game quantity. It’s great for the game, it definitely pushes the needle forward and increases the pace of the game so it’s cool to see other people getting an opportunity, for example, (Victoire defense woman) Kati Tabin hasn’t been in the program for a while. If it wasn’t for the PWHL, who knows how many games she would be playing per season so it’s really cool to see people like her getting an opportunity.”
Two Sirens’ Defense Women Heading to Milan
Defense women Maja Nylen-Persson, 25, will be playing in her third Olympics for Sweden and Nicole Vallario, 24, will be going to the Winter Games for the second time for Switzerland.
Nylen-Persson has featured prominently on the Sirens’ blueline this season contributing four points and starting all 16 games. The Swedes will be motivated at this year’s Olympics after finishing eighth place in 2022, their worst ever finish in the seven Olympics they have participated in since 1998.
Nylen-Persson described what being a veteran on this year’s Swedish team feels like.
“My first Olympics I was 17; I feel like I was still a kid and the whole experience was so cool but now getting into these Olympics, I have a lot more experience under my belt, [I have] been able to play in PWHL for two years and just going in with that. And when you’ve been to two Olympics, you can just see it as a hockey tournament because that will be my focus when I’m there and just in general, just trying to spread calm to the team and show the team the way.”
Vallario has had an interesting road to the summit of professional women’s ice hockey. The Swiss woman from Lugano—which happens to be the largest city in southern Switzerland bordering Italy—was not drafted. Instead, she was invited to Sirens’ training camp in November and made the team. Vallario made her PWHL debut on November 29 and scored her first PWHL goal in that very same game.
Like their Sirens teammate, Sarah Fillier, Nylen Persson and Vallario are Olympic veterans and will each bring the added experience of having represented their nations at the World Championships, as well.
Switzerland finished fourth in the 2022 Olympic women’s ice hockey tournament after losing to Finland in the bronze medal game. Vallario is hoping that the bonds she and her teammates have formed since 2022 will help lead the Swiss to their first ice hockey medal since the women won bronze in 2014.
“For us, we were so close to getting a bronze medal in the last Winter Olympics, especially. We’ve been growing every game, we’ve been playing together for so long, we know each other really well, so I think our motivation to get a medal is bigger than ever because we’ve been so close so many times…our motivation is going to drive us.”
When Are the Games?
Sweden has the very first game of the preliminary round of the women’s ice hockey tournament on February 5 at 6:10 a.m. ET against Germany followed by the Czechs facing USA at 10:40 a.m.
Canada will play their first game of the tournament that same day at 3:10 p.m. against Finland. Finally, Switzerland’s first game will be against the Czechs on February 6 at 8:40 a.m.
The opening ceremony will be this Friday at 2 p.m. ET.
Keep it with ONNJ Sports for continuing coverage of ice hockey at the Winter Games!
