2002 Olympics



2002 Olympics Ice hockey games were held at the E Center and Peaks Ice Arena in Salt Lake City and Provo, Utah. Both the men's and women's tournaments were won by Canada, defeating the host United States in both finals.

Men
Fourteen countries played in the tournament. Six hockey powers (Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Russia, Sweden, and the United States) were automatically admitted to the final eight. The other eight countries (Austria, Belarus, France, Germany, Latvia, Slovakia, Switzerland, and Ukraine) played in a preliminary round in two pools. The winners of those pools, Belarus and Germany, advanced to the final round with the six hockey powers.

The biggest surprise of the tournament was Belarus, 0–3–0 in Group D play, knocking off 3–0–0 Sweden in quarterfinal play. After that upset, the Swedish media held their players responsible for the loss, even going as far to publish their NHL salaries. The players responded by not returning to Sweden during the NHL break, although that was unlikely since the Olympics were held in the same continent as their NHL teams and play resumed soon after the Olympics ended.

Another major surprise was the silver medal finish of Team USA, which was not considered a contender as it was steeped heavily in over-30 veterans. Although it retained most of the players from the 1998 team which had performed below expectations, this time it was coached by Herb Brooks who had been responsible for the "Miracle on Ice" over the Soviet Union during the 1980 Olympics. Despite being close to the end of their careers, Mike Richter and Phil Housley put up phenomenal performances. Brett Hull, John LeClair and Mike Modano formed the "Divine Line" which led the tournament in scoring. Ending up, USA finished second in the round robin.

The USA's semi-final victory over Russia came coincidentally on the 22-year anniversary of the upset of the Soviet team at Lake Placid in 1980. The Americans stormed out to a 3–0 lead for the first two periods, before withstanding a furious two-goal rally from the Russians to advance. Russian coach Slava Fetisov, ironically one of the stars for the 1980 Soviet squad, complained about the selection of NHL referees to officiate Olympic matches and charged that officials were trying to fix a Canada-USA final for North American audiences.

Canada had a lackluster start, losing 5–2 to Sweden, only managing to defeat Germany by a score of 3–2, and drawing with the Czech Republic. These performances prompted an emotional response from Team Canada manager Wayne Gretzky, in particular the referee's failure to call a clear hit from behind on Canada's Theoren Fleury in the game against the Czech Republic. However, Canada improved in the elimination round, defeating Finland 2–1, and easily sweeping surprise semi-finalist Belarus 7–1. Canada then won the gold medal, defeating the USA by three goals, 5-2. Canada clearly dominated the game and achieved the result speculated. This was the first Olympic gold medal in 50 years for the Canadian ice hockey team. Canadian Joe Sakic was named tournament MVP, having scored twice and assisted on two more during the finals.

Thanks to the much-anticipated Canada-USA matchup in the final in front of a North American home crowd, TV ratings for this match were the highest in Olympic history. In the United States, the Canadian gold medal win was the highest rated hockey game, Olympic or NHL, since the 1980 Winter Olympics, with NBC's live coverage of it drawing a 10.7 rating. It was the largest network hockey audience in the U.S. in 22 years. In Canada, the CBC said that 10.6 million watched the game. Veteran CBC Sports commentator Bob Cole called in the dying seconds of the game: "Now, after 50 years, it's time for Canada to stand up and cheer! Stand up and cheer everybody! The Olympics, Salt Lake City 2002 Men's Ice Hockey Gold Medal: Canada!"

During the final, the legend of the lucky loonie was born when Canadian icemaker Trent Evans buried a Canadian one dollar coin (Loonie) under centre ice and both the Canadian men's and women's teams won gold.

The format of the tournament was the same one used in 1998 Olympics in Nagano. It was controversial because the National Hockey League clubs would not release their players for the preliminary round. This severely hampered the campaigns of Germany and Slovakia, although the former country managed to qualify for the final group stage. Also the final group stage was criticized as being meaningless since all of the teams qualified for the quarter-finals.

The format was changed for the 2006 Olympics in an effort to address these criticisms.

Group A
Top team (shaded) advanced to the first round. All times are local (UTC-7).

Group B
Top team (shaded) advanced to the first round. All times are local (UTC-7).

13th place match
All times are local (UTC-7).

11th place match
All times are local (UTC-7).

9th place match
All times are local (UTC-7).

Group C
All times are local (UTC-7).

Group D
All times are local (UTC-7).

Quarter-finals
All times are local (UTC-7).

Semi-finals
All times are local (UTC-7).

Bronze medal game
All times are local (UTC-7).

Gold medal game
All times are local (UTC-7).

Final rankings

 * 1) Canada
 * 2) United States
 * 3) Russia
 * 4) Belarus
 * 5) Sweden
 * 6) Finland
 * 7) Czech Republic
 * 8) Germany
 * 9) Latvia
 * 10) Ukraine
 * 11) Switzerland
 * 12) Austria
 * 13) Slovakia
 * 14) France

Women
This was the second time the Winter Olympics featured women's ice hockey.

The tournament marked the arrival of Sweden as a Tier Two team, on par with Finland. This increased the number of world class teams to four, Canada, the United States, Finland and Sweden. As with the 1998 Winter Olympics, when the US joined Canada as Tier One teams, another major change in the status of International Women's Ice Hockey occurs at the Olympics.

Eight countries competed. The top two teams in each pool advanced to the semi-finals.

Canada did not allow a goal in the preliminary round, while USA allowed only one goal. Canada trailed 3–2 to Finland going into the third period, but score 5 unanswered goals to advance to the final. USA had a fairly uneventful semi-final, shutting out Sweden. In the final, Canada outplayed USA despite being called for 13 penalties by the American referee (the Americans received four penalties). As a result, the game is considered somewhat controversial to many Canadian fans. The turning point of the game probably came when Canada's Jayna Hefford scored with one second left in the second period to give the Canadians a 3–1 lead going into the third period. This turned out to be the winning goal as the USA scored late in the third period on the power play to cut the lead to 3–2, but Canada hung on to win. It was the first women's hockey gold for Canada. Coming into the game, the Americans were 35–0 on their season, and had beaten the Canadians in their eight previous meetings. Canadian Hayley Wickenheiser was named tournament MVP.

Group A
Top two teams (shaded) advanced to semifinals.

Round robin

Canada 7–0 Kazakhstan

Sweden 3–2 Russia

Russia 0–7 Canada

Sweden 7–0 Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan 1–4 Russia

Canada 11–0 Sweden

Group B
Top two teams (shaded) advanced to semifinals.

Round robin

United States10–0Germany

Finland4–0China

Finland3–1Germany

China1–12United States

United States5–0Finland

Germany5–5China

Final rankings

 * 1) Canada
 * 2) United States
 * 3) Sweden
 * 4) Finland
 * 5) Russia
 * 6) Germany
 * 7) China
 * 8) Kazakhstan