Olympic viewing guide: One last medal for Canada?

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Ivanie Blondin's silver in the women's mass start this morning gave the Canadian speed skater her second medal of the Games — and one last dramatic call for retiring play-by-play legend Steve Armitage. It also lifted Canada's medal count to 25. That's the third-highest, behind Norway (35) and the Russian Olympic Committee team (31). With just a handful of competitions left before the flame goes out on Sunday morning, those countries are out of reach for Canada. So is the national Winter Olympic record of 29 medals, set four years ago in Pyeongchang. But Canada has a shot to match its second-best total of 26, from the magical 2010 Vancouver Games. We'll cover that and the other remaining events in our final daily viewing guide. Plus, some ideas on who might be picked to carry the Canadian flag at the closing ceremony. Here's what to watch on Saturday night and Sunday morning as the Beijing Winter Games come to a close:

The four-man crew piloted by Justin Kripps and also pushed by Ryan Sommer, Cam Stones and Ben Coakwell is in the bronze-medal position at the halfway point of the event. Two sleds are 0.18 of a second or less behind the Canadians, so they'll have to work to hang on to their podium spot. There's also drama in the race for gold, with just 0.03 of a second separating the great Francesco Friedrich, who was nearly unbeatable this season, from fellow German pilot Johannes Lochner. The final two runs go at 8:30 p.m. ET and 10:20 p.m. ET.

WATCH | While You Were Sleeping: Ivanie Blondin wins silver, strong start for Team Kripps:

Besides the bobsleigh race, only five other things are happening tonight ahead of the closing ceremony. Canadians either can't or aren't expected to medal in any of them. But if you're looking for one last Olympic fix, you can watch alpine skiing's mixed team parallel event at 8 p.m. ET, the women's curling gold-medal game between Great Britain and Japan at 8:05 p.m. ET, the cross-country skiing women's 30km mass start at 10 p.m ET, and figure skating's exhibition gala at 11 p.m. ET. To cap things off, the men's hockey gold-medal game between the defending-champion Russians and Finland goes at 11:10 p.m. ET.

Canada will announce its flag-bearer for the closing ceremony this evening. As always, there's no shortage of deserving candidates. But with Canada winning just four gold medals (its fewest at the Winter Olympics since 1994), the top choices are a little narrower this time. And narrower still when you consider that women's hockey captain Marie-Philip Poulin and short track speed skater Charles Hamelin did the honours for the opening ceremony. In a vacuum, both would be excellent picks for the closing ceremony. Poulin delivered Canada's biggest victory of the Games by scoring twice in the gold-medal final against the archirival U.S., while Hamelin helped his team to a relay gold in the final Olympic race of his brilliant career. But Canada does not typically pick someone to carry the flag twice at the same Olympics, so we can rule them out. The Canadian Olympic Committee also likes to spread the honour around to different sports. So that probably eliminates Poulin's teammates (tournament points leader Sarah Nurse and goals leader Brianne Jenner stand out) as well as short track skater Steven Dubois. He won gold on Hamelin's relay team and also captured individual silver and bronze to tie for the personal Canadian medal lead at these Games. That brings us to snowboarder Max Parrot, who won gold in the men's slopestyle and took bronze in the big air to complete the career set of Olympic medals — after beating cancer, to boot. And Blondin is fresh in our minds after adding the mass start silver this morning to her gold in the women's team pursuit. But one of Blondin's teammates stands above them. Isabelle Weidemann won a speed skating medal of each colour at these Games, taking silver and bronze in the two women's long-distance events and leading Canada to gold in the team pursuit in Olympic-record time. She would be my pick. We'll find out who the Canadian Olympic Committee selects at 6:45 p.m. ET. The chosen athlete will lead the Canadian team into Beijing's National Stadium (aka the Bird's Nest) for the closing ceremony, which starts at 7 a.m. ET. Live coverage begins at 6:30 a.m. ET, and you can watch it on the CBC TV network, CBC Gem, the CBC Sports app and CBC Sports' Beijing 2022 website. Find out more about the different ways you can watch the ceremony here.

We'll be back tomorrow for one last Beijing 2022 edition, wrapping up the memorable moments we witnessed and what to make of it all. The Buzzer will then take a much-needed day off before returning Tuesday. The Paralympic Winter Games are coming up, and we'll continue to follow Canada's Olympic athletes (winter and summer) along with all the other sports Canadians care about, all year round. So, if you're enjoying our daily Beijing 2022 updates, stay subscribed and look for us every weekday in your inbox.