Ice hockey is a sport that is contested at the Winter Olympic Games . A men's ice hockey tournament has been held every Winter Olympics (starting in 1924); an ice hockey tournament was also held at the 1920 Summer Olympics. [1] From 1920 to 1968, the Olympics also acted as the Ice Hockey World Championships, and the two events occurred concurrently. [2] From 1920 until 1984, only amateur athletes were allowed to compete in the tournament, and players from the National Hockey League (NHL) were not allowed to compete. The countries that benefited most were the Soviet Bloc countries of Eastern Europe, where top athletes were state-sponsored while retaining their status as amateurs. [3] [4] In 1970, after a disagreement over the definition of amateur players, Canada withdrew from the tournament and did not send a team to the 1972 or 1976 Winter Olympics. [5] [6] In 1986, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided to allow professional athletes to compete in the Olympics, and starting in 1998, the NHL allowed its players to participate. [6] [7] Women's ice hockey was added in 1992 and the first tournament was held at the 1998 Winter Olympics. [8] [9] Both events have been held at every Olympic Games since. [1]
In women's hockey, Canadians Jayna Hefford and Hayley Wickenheiser hold the record for total medals (five), having won four gold and one silver. Their teammate Caroline Ouellette also won four gold medals. Five other athletes have won four medals: three Canadians – Becky Kellar, Jennifer Botterill, and Marie-Philip Poulin with three gold and a silver – and three Americans - Angela Ruggiero, Jenny Potter (each with one gold, two silver and one bronze) and Julie Chu (three silver and one bronze).
Eight male athletes have won four medals: Russians Vladislav Tretiak (three gold, one silver) and Igor Kravchuk (two gold, one silver, one bronze), Czech Jiří Holík (two silver, two bronze) and five players from Finland, each with one silver and three bronze: Teemu Selänne, Kimmo Timonen, Saku Koivu, Jere Lehtinen and Ville Peltonen. Six have won three gold medals (all from Russia): Tretiak, Anatoli Firsov, Viktor Kuzkin, Andrei Khomutov, Alexander Ragulin and Vitali Davydov. [10]
From 1920 to 1952, teams from Canada dominated the men's tournament, winning six gold and one silver medal. Canada's dominance was broken only by Great Britain in 1936. The Soviet Union began competing at the Olympics in 1956 and won nine straight Olympic medals, including seven gold. The USSR's dominance was only broken by the United States in 1960 and 1980. The Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, and in 1992, a Unified Team composed mainly of former Soviet players won gold. Since then, the competition has been more even, with Canada winning three times, Sweden twice and the Czech Republic, Russia and Finland once each. Teams from Canada have won the most medals, with fifteen, including nine gold. As of the 2018 Winter Olympics, 90 medals (30 of each color) have been awarded to teams from 14 National Olympic Committees.
Individuals who have been inducted to the Hockey Hall of Fame (including announced members awaiting induction) are indicated as follows:
Rank | Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Canada | 9 | 4 | 3 |
2 | Soviet Union | 7 | 1 | 1 |
3 | United States | 2 | 8 | 1 |
4 | Sweden | 2 | 3 | 4 |
5 | Finland | 1 | 2 | 4 |
6 | Czech Republic | 1 | 1 | |
Great Britain | 1 | 1 | ||
8 | Unified Team | 1 | ||
Olympic Athletes from Russia | 1 | |||
10 | Czechoslovakia | 4 | 4 | |
11 | Germany | 1 | 2 | |
12 | Russia | 1 | 1 | |
13 | ROC | 1 | ||
14 | Switzerland | 2 | ||
15 | Slovakia | 1 | ||
Individuals who have been inducted to the Hockey Hall of Fame (including announced members awaiting induction) are indicated as follows:
Rank | Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Canada | 5 | 2 | |
2 | United States | 2 | 4 | 1 |
3 | Sweden | 1 | 1 | |
4 | Finland | 4 | ||
5 | Switzerland | 1 | ||
^ Note 2. The members of the 1920 Czechoslovakia team vary depending on the source. Karel Hartmann, Vilém Loos, Jan Palouš, Jan Peka, Karel Pešek, Josef Šroubek and Otakar Vindyš are all consistently included on team lists. However, there is a discrepancy over Karel Wälzer, Josef Loos, Karel Kotrba and Adolf Dušek. The following are the lineups based on the listings of the Czech Olympic Committee (COC), International Olympic Committee (IOC) and International Society of Olympic Historians (ISOH). This table does not list the seven that are included in every source.
Player | COC [11] | IOC | ISOH [12] |
---|---|---|---|
Karel Wälzer | |||
Josef Loos | |||
Karel Kotrba | |||
Adolf Dušek |
The Ice Hockey World Championships are an annual international men's ice hockey tournament organized by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF). First officially held at the 1920 Summer Olympics. The IIHF was created in 1908 while the European Championships, the precursor to the World Championships, were first held in 1910. The tournament held at the 1920 Summer Olympics is recognized as the first Ice Hockey World Championship. From 1920 to 1968, the Olympic hockey tournament was also considered the World Championship for that year.
The Sweden men's national ice hockey team is governed by the Swedish Ice Hockey Association. It is one of the most successful national ice hockey teams in the world and a member of the so-called "Big Six", the unofficial group of the six strongest men's ice hockey nations, along with Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Russia and the United States.
The Czech Republic men's national ice hockey team is the national ice hockey team of the Czech Republic. Since 2021, the team has been officially known in English as Czechia. It is one of the most successful national ice hockey teams in history and a member of the so-called "Big Six", the unofficial group of the six strongest men's ice hockey nations, along with Canada, Finland, Russia, Sweden and the United States. It is governed by the Czech Ice Hockey Association. The Czech Republic has 85,000 male players officially enrolled in organized hockey.
The Russian men's national ice hockey team is the national men's ice hockey team of Russia, overseen by the Ice Hockey Federation of Russia. As of 2021, they were rated third in the IIHF World Ranking. The team has competed internationally from 1992 until it was provisionally suspended in 2022, and is recognized by the IIHF as the successor to the Soviet Union team and CIS team. Russia has been one of the most successful national ice hockey teams in the world and a member of the so-called "Big Six," the unofficial group of the six strongest men's ice hockey nations, along with Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Sweden, and the United States. The European nations of the Big Six participate in the Euro Hockey Tour, which Russia won nine times since 2005. Since September 2021, the head coach is Alexei Zhamnov, who took over from Valeri Bragin.
The German men's national ice hockey team is the national ice hockey team of Germany and is controlled by the German Ice Hockey Federation. It first participated in serious international competition at the 1911 European Hockey Championship. When Germany was split after World War II, a separate East Germany national ice hockey team existed until 1990. By 1991, the West and East German teams and players were merged into the United German team. The team's head coach is Harold Kreis.
Angela Marie Ruggiero is an American former ice hockey defenseman, gold medalist, and four-time Olympian. She was a member of the International Olympic Committee from 2010 to 2018 and served as a member of the Executive Board of the IOC after being elected the Chairperson of the IOC Athletes' Commission, the body that represents all Olympic athletes worldwide, a post which she held from 2016 to 2018.
Ice hockey tournaments have been staged at the Olympic Games since 1920. The men's tournament was introduced at the 1920 Summer Olympics and was transferred permanently to the Winter Olympic Games program in 1924, in France. The women's tournament was first held at the 1998 Winter Olympics.
The Triple Gold Club is the group of ice hockey players and coaches who have won an Olympic Games gold medal, a World Championship gold medal, and the Stanley Cup, the championship trophy of the National Hockey League (NHL). The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) considers them to be "the three most important championships available to the sport".
Canada has competed at every Winter Olympic Games, and has won at least one medal each time. By total medals, the country's best performance was in the 2018 Winter Olympic Games where Canadian athletes won 29 medals. Canada set a new record for most gold medals won by a country in a single Winter Olympics with 14 at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. This achievement surpassed the previous record of 13 gold medals held by the Soviet Union (1976) and Norway (2002). Both Germany and Norway matched the record total of 14 gold medals in Pyeongchang in 2018. This record has since been surpassed by Norway with 16 at the 2022 Winter Olympics.
Karel "Káďa" Pešek was a Czechoslovak ice hockey and football player. He played as midfielder for Sparta Prague and the Czechoslovak football national team. He played from 1913 to 1933, scoring 149 goals in his club career. Pešek was voted by IFFHS as the 81st greatest European footballer of the 20th century, and the third greatest Czechoslovakian player of the 20th century behind Josef Bican and Josef Masopust.
Karel Gut was a Czech ice hockey player and coach, who later worked in sports management. He was born in Prague and later played in the Czechoslovak Extraliga. While Gut played soccer in his youth, he was better known as an, "offensive-minded hockey defenseman". Gut was inducted into the International Ice Hockey Federation Hall of Fame in 1998, and has also been inducted into the Czechoslovak Ice Hockey Hall of Fame.
Canada has sent athletes to every Winter Olympic Games and every Summer Olympic Games since its debut at the 1900 games with the exception of the 1980 Summer Olympics, which it boycotted along with the USA and other countries. Canada has won at least one medal at every Olympics in which it has competed. The Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) is the National Olympic Committee for Canada.
The United States of America has sent athletes to every celebration of the Winter Olympic Games. The United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) is the National Olympic Committee for the United States.
The men's ice hockey tournament at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, was the 19th Olympic Championship. The Czech Republic, which emerged from the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993, won its first winter gold medal, becoming only the seventh nation to win Olympic ice hockey gold. The tournament, held from February 7 to February 22, was played at the Big Hat and Aqua Wing arenas.