The Olympic gold medal hanging from Haley Winn’s neck was a crowning touch on her rapid rise to ice hockey’s mountaintop.

The 55th Baltimore Catholic League Tournament, presented by Brooks Financial Group, will tip off March 1, featuring some of the best high school basketball talent in the nation. The Baltimore Catholic League Tournament is the longest-running boys postseason tournament in the state.

When the U.S. men’s hockey team dramatically captured its first Olympic gold medal in 46 years at the 2026 Winter Games Feb. 22 in Milan, Italy, the triumph was defined not only by athletic achievement but by remembrance and faith.

Pope Pius’ recognition of the good of physical play foreshadowed formal efforts now established in the Vatican to support athletics as a means of virtue and human excellence, on all levels — from neighborhood kickball to the Olympics, including this year’s Milan-Cortina Winter Games, whose closing ceremony was held Feb. 22.

At the 2026 Winter Olympic Games, Polish ski jumper Kacper Tomasiak made history — and then went to Mass.

Mount St. Joseph senior guard BJ Ranson, who led the Gaels to a 29-win regular season, earned the Baltimore Catholic League’s Jerry Savage Player of the Year Award for the 2025-26 season.

Father Geoffroy Génin is a 69-year-old French priest whose appearance is sometimes unusual. Tall and slim, he has the look of an athlete. Once a week, he can be seen on the ski slopes, in the heart of a magnificent snow-covered valley in the Alps.

The Catholic athletes at the Games this year are joining a long tradition of Catholic Olympians who have made history with their inspiring stories of faith and endurance. Here are just some of the Catholic stories that came out of past Winter Games.

“The pope is dead.” These words will dramatically ring out across Olympic ice as Italian figure skater Daniel Grassl begins his long program to music from the movie “Conclave” in the men’s figure skating final event Feb. 13, which will determine who stands on the podium at the Milan Cortina Games.

Just as the 2026 Olympic Winter Games in Milan Cortina were about to begin, Pope Leo XIV called on the Catholic Church to recognize sport as an opportunity to offer much-needed human and spiritual guidance.