Jim Corsi was one of the official torchbearers for the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Italy.
Carrying the Olympic flame in Italy was unlike anything Jim Corsi, BEng 76, had experienced in his decades on the ice.
“It felt remarkable. I had played for the Italian national hockey team, and suddenly I was representing the city of Varese with the Olympic flame. The significance of that was mind-blowing,” says the Concordia engineering alum.
Corsi, a former standout goalie and current goaltending coach with the Concordia Stingers men’s hockey team, was invited to carry the flame ahead of the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics. His leg of the relay took place in Varese, the Italian city where he spent much of his professional life after leaving Canada. The moment was deeply personal.
“My sons came, my wife, friends from high school, family, my brother,” he says. “They were there with me before, during and after. The experience wasn’t as detached as when you’re playing in front of spectators.”
For someone who has spent more than five decades in competitive hockey — including coaching goalies in the NHL, and as part of the coaching staff for Team Italy’s men’s hockey team in the 2006 Torino Winter Olympics — that distinction mattered.
“I had never experienced such an exhilarating emotion,” says Corsi, who was still in Italy at the time of the interview.
A life shaped by sport, study and discipline
Corsi’s path to that moment traces back to Loyola College — one of Concordia’s founding institutions — through to the merger with Sir George Williams University to become Concordia University, where he balanced varsity athletics with a demanding degree program.
“I wanted to be an engineer. I wanted to build things,” he says. “I also wanted to be part of a sport that I identified with.”
Jim Corsi (right) during transfer of the Olympic flame between torch bearers.