Switzerland’s Upset: When They Shocked Canada at the 2006 Olympics

Milan – Twenty years later, the surprise would be less significant. But in 2006, the idea of Switzerland defeating Canada in hockey bordered on fiction. Until February 18th, in Turin, when reality caught up with fantasy.

The Swiss will face the Canadians again this Friday, 150 kilometers from here, at the Santagiulia Arena.

Canada arrives in Italy as a frontrunner, just as they did in 2006. Despite some roster choices that raised eyebrows, the Canadians boasted Jarome Iginla, Vincent Lecavalier, Joe Sakic, Chris Pronger, and Martin Brodeur.

Against a team comprised of players largely unknown in North America, Canada was theoretically expected to win without difficulty, to triumph without glory.

Adding to this, one of the three NHL players on the Swiss roster, David Aebischer, spent the match on the bench as Martin Gerber’s backup. And Mark Streit was just beginning his NHL career, at the age of 28. “In Montreal, I had been a healthy scratch [left out] for six or seven games before the Games,” he recalls. In fact, it was eight consecutive games.

“The role of underdog suited us, we had nothing to lose. It was a one-game situation. If we had played them ten times, we might have lost nine!” Streit adds.

Gerber’s Saves, DiPietro’s Goals

Players on the current Team Canada roster have almost all said they are fulfilling a childhood dream by playing in the Olympics. They all grew up watching Sidney Crosby score the “golden goal.”

However, NHL players began participating in the Olympics in 1998. Before that, Canada sent a disparate collection of players to the Games who were not under contract with NHL teams. So, for Paul DiPietro, born in 1970 in Sault Ste. Marie, the Games held little significance. “I didn’t dream about them, because if you went, it meant you didn’t have a job! You’d settle in Calgary and earn $20,000 a year.”

He didn’t dream of Team Canada, let alone Switzerland. But it was in that country that life led him after the NHL, where he extended his 14-year career, and where he became a national icon.

He achieved this by opening the scoring in the first period, then doubling the Swiss lead midway through the game. “Both times, I just had to push the puck,” DiPietro humbly recounts over the phone from Zug. “I was just in the right place. The reason we won isn’t my goals, but Martin Gerber and our collective play.”

Watch one of Paul DiPietro’s goals

Gerber is, in fact, the other hero of this match, with his 49 saves (!), including 24 in the third period alone (!!). It was around him that the Swiss players huddled at the final siren. “One of the three best performances I’ve seen from a goaltender, and that includes Patrick Roy,” DiPietro asserts.

Some will always wonder if he stopped 49 pucks or 48. One of his saves in the second period required a video review that stretched for seven minutes, as it wasn’t clear if the puck crossed the goal line in Gerber’s glove on a shot from Rick Nash. “The longer it went on, the more we thought the goal would be awarded,” DiPietro recalls.

The verdict – no goal – was, of course, crucial to the 2-0 victory, but so was the long interruption, knowing there were still five long minutes left in the period. “Canada was putting a lot of pressure on us. So it allowed us to breathe, and the coaches were able to calm the players and give us a few tactical reminders,” Streit points out.

Without Complexes

Another architect of this victory was head coach Ralph Krueger. Known to North Americans as the former head coach of the Oilers, Sabres, and Team Europe at the 2016 World Cup, Krueger is a monument of Swiss hockey. He led the national team for a dozen years, until 2010.

“He changed the program,” Streit estimates. “He took a lot of pride in working with the Swiss. He had a way of speaking, of motivating the team, the tactics, the defensive game.”

The effect wasn’t immediate on the results, but Switzerland returned to the podium at the World Championship in 2013, then in 2018, 2024 and 2025. There are 11 Swiss players in the NHL this season, including two captains, Roman Josi and Nico Hischier.

“We know what kind of power Canada represents,” says one of the 11, Nino Niederreiter. “But 20 years ago, Mark Streit and the others paved the way for us, showed that it’s possible to tame the beast. In Vancouver in 2010, we lost in a shootout. We were there.”

“It’s a way of taking stock of the progress of Swiss hockey in 12 years, because it’s the best against the best,” Mark Streit points out. “In 2006, Canada may have underestimated us. Now, I don’t think they will underestimate us, we have respect because we have Roman, Nico, Timo. That makes a very big difference.”