Olympics 101: Ice Hockey

The other night, I was reading the Ice Hockey section in my copy of The Complete Guide to the Winter Olympics by David Wallechinsky and Jaime Loucky and came across some interesting (and not particularly well known) information I thought I'd share.

Canada was a leader in the debate on professionalism and the Olympics. The country withdrew from international ice hockey competition in 1969 because it objected to having to play professionals from Communist countries. The issue on what made a hockey player a professional was a fairly complicated one. The IOC said that any hockey player who had signed a professional contract was a professional while the International Ice Hockey Federation said that a player had to play in a professional game before being considered a professional. Furthermore, these definitions applied only to the NHL; minor league players and players in European leagues were considered eligible. Athletes on Communist national teams received paychecks from their governments as opposed to privately-owned clubs and were therefore still eligible. Sweden joined in this boycott in 1976 and both countries returned to international competition in 1980.

One has to wonder how much these "definitions" had to do with the USSR's dominance in hockey. Would more of their players have defected or refused to play if they weren't receiving paychecks? If Canada and the US had been allowed to use paid players, would they have been more of a factor in the international hockey scene?

The 1928 Canadian team, comprised of players from the 1926 Toronto University team, was so good that Olympic officials advanced them to the medal round after seeing them practice. The team went on to beat Sweden 11-0, Great Britain 14-0, and Switzerland 13-0 in the medal round, justifying the decision.

Canada also produced the first male black gold medalist at the Winter Olympics when Jarome Iginla won a gold medal with the 2002 Canadian hockey team.

Perhaps the most impressive feat of the Soviet Union in ice hockey was not their record, but their ability to bounce back from tragedy. A plane crash killed all but one member of the national team in 1950. The government kept the crash quiet and went on to win the 1954 World Championships with a completely new squad as well as the country's first ice hockey gold medal in 1956.

After losing to the USA in the medal round in 1960, Nikolai Sologubov, the captain of the USSR team, actually helped the American team defeat Czechoslovakia for a gold medal. Down 4-3 after two periods, Sologubov came into the locker room and said that the American players should take some oxygen. The US went on to win 9-4. That never would have happened in 1980!