Former Dal student turned bobsledder represents Canada at the Olympics
Mike Evelyn O’Higgins made his second Olympic appearance
By: Ryan Bradbury and Ethan Hunt
For some athletes, the Olympics are a lifetime achievement, rewarding decades of work in a sport. For Mike Evelyn O’Higgins, they are merely the next chapter in a fulfilling career on the ice.
Between 2014 and 2019, O’Higgins played 127 games as a bruising left winger for the Dalhousie University men’s hockey team, scoring 22 goals and racking up 182 penalty minutes. Now, O’Higgins finds himself in the midst of another athletic chapter: representing Team Canada in bobsleigh at the 2026 Olympic Winter Games in Milano Cortina.
After spending a few years playing hockey in Atlantic University Sport, O’Higgins had never pushed a bobsled. But during his time at Dalhousie, he participated in RBC Training Ground, a program that identifies Canadian athletes with Olympic potential.
“[The program testing] was actually before one of my hockey games,” O’Higgins said. “I just went out, treated it as a warm-up, and did the testing.”
RBC tests thousands of athletes each year and has sent 21 program alumni to the Olympics in the last 10 years.
While the sport was unfamiliar, O’Higgins felt confident in his natural speed and strength.
“I always ran pretty fast, but I didn’t have much technique,” says O’Higgins. “After seven years of sprint training, that hasn’t really changed. Bobsled is basically running, but not quite.”
Despite hockey and bobsleigh being ice sports, O’Higgins said the learning curve proved significant following his hockey career.
“My first ever time down the hill was also my pilot’s first ever time down the hill,” O’Higgins says. “We’d never seen the track before. We flew into Calgary, walked the track, got a 25-minute crash course on what bobsledding was, and then they threw us down the hill.”
O’Higgins said learning bobsleigh is unlike most sports because of the initial risk involved, noting the inherent danger of pushing a 400-pound sled down a sheet of ice with no experience.
“Most sports, when you first try the sport, you’re at the lowest risk … bobsled is the opposite.”
Olympic dreams
Despite his training efforts, O’Higgins kept his sights realistic when considering the Olympics. But in 2022, he earned a spot on the Canadian Olympic bobsledding team heading to Beijing.
“I had no expectations of ever making the Olympics when I started the sport,” he said. “The whole first season was a novelty. I tried out for the team and managed to make the last spot on the last sled.”
O’Higgins has mixed feelings about his first Olympics.
“It was really cool,” O’Higgins says. “It was China during COVID, so there were no spectators. It was different from what was originally planned. Very locked down, very regimented. But it was an amazing experience. It was like going to Disney World, but for athletes.”
Heading into his second Olympics, O’Higgins isn’t the only former U Sports athlete bobsledding for Canada. Ten former athletes who competed in Canadian university sports — including football, track and field, soccer and hockey — represented the red and white in bobsleigh.
In the lead-up to Milano Cortina, O’Higgins felt confident about the team’s chances to take home some hardware. Canada previously won six medals in the men’s division and is looking to add to their collection.
“At the last Olympics, we felt like we didn’t have much of a chance in the four-man event, and then we were focused on two-man,” O’Higgins said. “This time around, it feels like we have a pretty exciting shot in both events, so that’s pretty cool.”
O’Higgings, along with partner Jay Dearborn, placed 23rd in two-man bobsleigh on Feb. 17, with Germany sweeping the podium. Higgins is sent to return to the course Feb. 21 and 22 for four-man bobsleigh.
