1998 Winter Olympics – Men's tournament

1998 Winter Olympics Men's Ice Hockey
Tournament details
Host nation	Japan
Dates	7–22 February
Teams	14
Venue(s)	Big Hat, Aqua Wing Arena (in 1 host city)
Champions	Czech Republic (1 title)
Tournament statistics
Games played	35
Goals scored	210  (6 per game)
Scoring leader(s)	Teemu Selänne10 points

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 gold medal, becoming only the seventh nation to ever win Olympic ice hockey gold. The tournament, held from February 7 to February 22, was played at the Big Hat and Aqua Wing arenas.

This was the first Olympics in which the National Hockey League (NHL) took a break allowing national teams to be constructed using the best possible talent from each country. The 1998 Olympic tournament therefore came to be known as the "Tournament of the Century". Unlike previous Olympics where athletes could choose five-star hotel accommodations (such as the USA Men's Basketball team), NHL players were required to stay in the Olympic Village like other athletes.

Both Canada and the United States were heavily favoured; they had previously faced off in the final of the 1996 World Cup of Hockey. After a below-expectations performance in the tournament which included only one win, however, several American players trashed their rooms in the Olympic Village. Although the Americans quickly paid for the damage, they never apologized. The Canadian team, despite a strong start in the round robin, failed to play well after losing their semifinal match against the Czech Republic, and played a lackluster bronze medal game, disappointing Canadians who wished for Wayne Gretzky to get an Olympic medal. Nonetheless, Gretzky encouraged all of his teammates to attend the closing ceremony.

With political struggles and problems within the Russian hockey program at the time, Russia was missing most of its top NHL stars that refused to participate for political or personal reasons, and were not expected to medal. Among the missing were Nikolai Khabibulin, Alexander Mogilny, Igor Larionov, Viacheslav Fetisov, Vyacheslav Kozlov, Oleg Tverdovsky, Vladimir Malakhov and Sergei Zubov. Alexei Kovalev missed the tournament due to injury where he was replaced by Sergei Fedorov, who called the president of the Russian Ice Hockey Federation and offered to be a substitute, who had not played in nearly a year and was currently in a holdout with the Detroit Red Wings.

In large part due to the goaltending of Dominik Hašek, who was considered the best goaltender throughout Olympic play as well as the NHL, the Czech Republic shut-out Russia to win the gold medal.

The format of the men's tournament was criticized because the National Hockey League (NHL) clubs would not release their players for the preliminary round. This severely hampered the campaigns of Germany and Slovakia, both of whom failed 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 eventually changed for the 2006 tournament in an effort to address these criticisms.

Qualification

Fourteen nations would qualify for the Olympic tournament, eight to the preliminary round, and six to the first round. The IIHF used the standings of the 1995 Men's World Ice Hockey Championships to determine qualification. First, the top six nations from Pool A would go directly to the first round. The preliminary round was made up of the nations ranked seventh and eighth, along with the host Japan, and five others from a series of qualification tournaments. The nations ranked nine through twelve went straight to the final qualification round.

Regional Pre-Qualification

Group A

Five nations played each other twice, both home and away, from October 25, 1995, until December 12, 1996.

Rank	Team	GP	W	L	T	GF	GA	PTS
1	Switzerland	8	6	0	2	42	14	14			2 - 2	8 - 1	5 - 3	7 - 1
2	Great Britain	8	5	0	3	31	15	13		3 - 3		1 - 1	5 - 0	4 - 1
3	Denmark	8	3	4	1	23	28	7		2 - 6	2 - 3		4 - 2	4 - 0
4	Slovenia	8	3	5	0	32	24	6		1 - 4	4 - 5	5 - 1		9 - 0
5	Netherlands	8	0	8	0	8	55	0		1 - 7	2 - 8	3 - 8	0 - 8

Group B

This tournament was played in Tychy, Poland, from December 17 to 22, 1996.

Rank	Team	GP	W	L	T	GF	GA	PTS
1	Ukraine	4	3	0	1	51	3	7			3 - 3	10 - 0	17 - 0	21 - 0
2	Poland	4	3	0	1	36	8	7		3 - 3		6 - 3	14 - 0	13 - 2
3	Romania	4	2	2	0	19	22	4		0 - 10	3 - 6		7 - 2	9 - 4
4	Bulgaria	4	1	3	0	7	40	2		0 - 17	0 - 14	2 - 7		5 - 2
5	Yugoslavia	4	0	4	0	8	48	0		0 - 21	2 - 13	4 - 9	2 - 5

• Note: In January 1996 Greece beat Israel 10-2, but forfeited the result because of an ineligible player. Following that, in March of the same year Israel played Yugoslavia, in Lithuania, losing 5-3. Israel's loss is officially a 5-0 loss, the match was declared forfeit because they used ineligible players from Russia.

Group C

This tournament was played in Riga, Latvia, from August 27 to September 1, 1996.

Rank	Team	GP	W	L	T	GF	GA	PTS
1	Belarus	4	4	0	0	54	4	8			4 - 1	13 - 1	16 - 1	21 - 1
2	Latvia	4	3	1	0	53	6	6		1 - 4		10 - 2	15 - 0	27 - 0
3	Hungary	4	2	2	0	19	31	4		1 - 13	2 - 10		7 - 4	9 - 4
4	Estonia	4	1	3	0	14	41	2		1 - 16	0 - 15	4 - 7		9 - 3
5	Lithuania	4	0	4	0	8	66	0		1 - 21	0 - 27	4 - 9	3 - 9

• Note: In January 1996 Hungary played a challenge series against Croatia winning 7-0 and 6-0.

Group D

The Asian Winter Games were used as a qualifying tournament, and were played in Harbin, China, from February 5 to 8, 1996. Japan participated though already qualified for the Olympics.

Team	GP	W	L	T	GF	GA	PTS
Kazakhstan	3	3	0	0	33	2	6			4 - 1	20 - 0	9 - 1
Japan	3	2	1	0	14	6	4		1 - 4		7 - 1	6 - 1
China	3	1	2	0	7	29	2		0 - 20	1 - 7		6 - 2
South Korea	3	0	3	0	4	21	0		1 - 9	1 - 6	2 - 6

Final Olympic Qualification

The top two from each group qualify, the two third placed nations play for the final spot.

Group 1

Played in Oberhausen, Germany, from February 6 to 9, 1997.

Team	GP	W	L	T	GF	GA	PTS
Germany	3	2	0	1	11	7	5			3 - 2	4 - 1	4 - 4
Slovakia	3	1	1	1	9	7	3		2 - 3		3 - 3	4 - 1
Switzerland	3	1	1	1	6	8	3		1 - 4	3 - 3		2 - 1
Ukraine	3	0	2	1	6	10	1		4 - 4	1 - 4	1 - 2

Group 2

Played in Innsbruck, Austria, from February 6 to 9, 1997.

Team	GP	W	L	T	GF	GA	PTS
Belarus	3	1	0	2	12	8	4			4 - 4	6 - 2	2 - 2
Kazakhstan	3	1	0	2	11	8	4		4 - 4		4 - 1	3 - 3
Austria	3	1	2	0	7	11	2		2 - 6	1 - 4		4 - 1
Norway	3	0	1	2	6	9	2		2 - 2	3 - 3	1 - 4

February 11, 1997

Austria

2 – 0 (0–0, 1–0, 1–0)

Switzerland

Duisburg Germany

Austria secures the final spot in the Preliminary Round.

Preliminary Round

Group A

Top team (shaded) advanced to the first round.

Team	GP	W	L	T	GF	GA	GD	Pts
Kazakhstan	3	2	0	1	14	11	+3	5
Slovakia	3	1	1	1	9	9	0	3
Italy	3	1	2	0	11	11	0	2
Austria	3	0	1	2	9	12	-3	2

All times are local (UTC+9).

7 February 1998

Kazakhstan

5 – 3 (1-3, 1-0, 3-0)

Italy

The Big Hat, Nagano, Japan Attendance: 8,634

Game reference

7 February 1998

Austria

2 – 2 (1-0, 1-2, 0-0)

Slovakia

Aqua Wing Arena, Nagano, Japan Attendance: 4,315

Game reference

8 February 1998

Austria

5 – 5 (2-2, 2-1, 1-2)

Kazakhstan

The Big Hat, Nagano, Japan Attendance: 9,410

Game reference

8 February 1998

Slovakia

4 – 3 (1-2, 3-1, 0-0)

Italy

The Big Hat, Nagano, Japan Attendance: 8,620

Game reference

10 February 1998

Italy

5 – 2 (2-0, 2-0, 1-2)

Austria

The Big Hat, Nagano, Japan Attendance: 8,473

Game reference

10 February 1998

Slovakia

3 – 4 (1-1, 1-0, 1-3)

Kazakhstan

Aqua Wing Arena, Nagano, Japan Attendance: 3,659

Game reference

Group B

Top team (shaded) advanced to the first round.

Team	GP	W	L	T	GF	GA	GD	Pts
Belarus	3	2	0	1	14	4	+10	5
Germany	3	2	1	0	7	9	-2	4
France	3	1	2	0	5	8	-3	2
Japan	3	0	2	1	5	10	-5	1

All times are local (UTC+9).

7 February 1998

France

0 – 4 (0-1, 0-1, 0-2)

Belarus

Aqua Wing Arena, Nagano, Japan Attendance: 3,419

Game reference

7 February 1998

Germany

3 – 1 (0-0, 1-0, 2-1)

Japan

The Big Hat, Nagano, Japan Attendance: 9,861

Game reference

9 February 1998

Germany

2 – 8 (0-2, 2-3, 0-3)

Belarus

The Big Hat, Nagano, Japan Attendance: 8,063

Game reference

9 February 1998

Japan

2 – 5 (2-1, 0-1, 0-3)

France

The Big Hat, Nagano, Japan Attendance: 9,930

Game reference

10 February 1998

Japan

2 – 2 (1-1, 1-1, 0-0)

Belarus

The Big Hat, Nagano, Japan Attendance: 3,659

Game reference

10 February 1998

France

0 – 2 (0-0, 0-1, 0-1)

Germany

Aqua Wing Arena, Nagano, Japan Attendance: 3,916

Game reference

Consolation round

13th place match

All times are local (UTC+9).

12 February 1998

Japan

4 – 3 (SO) (1-2, 1-0, 1-1, 0-0, 1-0)

Austria

The Big Hat, Nagano, Japan Attendance: 9,495

Game reference

11th place match

All times are local (UTC+9).

12 February 1998

France

5 – 1 (1-0, 0-0, 4-1)

Italy

The Big Hat, Nagano, Japan Attendance: 8,854

Game reference

9th place match

All times are local (UTC+9).

12 February 1998

Germany

4 – 2 (0-1, 1-1, 3-0)

Slovakia

The Big Hat, Nagano, Japan Attendance: 8,670

Game reference

First Round

Group C

Team	GP	W	L	T	GF	GA	GD	Pts
Canada	3	3	0	0	12	3	+9	6
Sweden	3	2	1	0	11	7	+4	4
United States	3	1	2	0	8	10	-2	2
Belarus	3	0	3	0	4	15	-11	0

All times are local (UTC+9).

13 February 1998

Canada

5 – 0 (2-0, 2-0, 1-0)

Belarus

The Big Hat, Nagano, Japan Attendance: 9,960

Game reference

13 February 1998

Sweden

4 – 2 (1-2, 2-0, 1-0)

United States

The Big Hat, Nagano, Japan Attendance: 9,985

Game reference

14 February 1998

United States

5 – 2 (2-1, 1-0, 2-1)

Belarus

The Big Hat, Nagano, Japan Attendance: 9,975

Game reference

14 February 1998

Canada

3 – 2 (0-1, 3-0, 0-1)

Sweden

The Big Hat, Nagano, Japan Attendance: 9,945

Game reference

16 February 1998

Sweden

5 – 2 (2-0, 1-1, 2-1)

Belarus

Aqua Wing Arena, Nagano, Japan Attendance: 4,235

Game reference

16 February 1998

Canada

4 – 1 (1-0, 2-0, 1-1)

United States

The Big Hat, Nagano, Japan Attendance: 9.451

Game reference

Group D

Team	GP	W	L	T	GF	GA	GD	Pts
Russia	3	3	0	0	15	6	+9	6
Czech Republic	3	2	1	0	12	4	+8	4
Finland	3	1	2	0	11	9	+2	2
Kazakhstan	3	0	3	0	6	25	-19	0

All times are local (UTC+9).

13 February 1998

Russia

9 – 2 (2-1, 5-0, 2-1)

Kazakhstan

Aqua Wing Arena, Nagano, Japan Attendance: 3,752

Game reference

13 February 1998

Czech Republic

3 – 0 (0-0, 1-0, 2-0)

Finland

Aqua Wing Arena, Nagano, Japan Attendance: 5,050

Game reference

15 February 1998

Czech Republic

8 – 2 (1-0, 3-2, 4-0)

Kazakhstan

The Big Hat, Nagano, Japan Attendance: 9,975

Game reference

15 February 1998

Russia

4 – 3 (2-1, 1-2, 0-1)

Finland

The Big Hat, Nagano, Japan Attendance: 9,894

Game reference

16 February 1998

Russia

2 – 1 (0-0, 0-1, 2-0)

Czech Republic

The Big Hat, Nagano, Japan Attendance: 9,847

Game reference

16 February 1998

Finland

8 – 2 (3-1, 1-0, 4-1)

Kazakhstan

Aqua Wing Arena, Nagano, Japan Attendance: 5,544

Game reference

Final round

Quarterfinals

Semifinals

Gold medal game

C1

Canada

4

D4

Kazakhstan

1

C1

Canada

1

D2

Czech Republic

2

D2

Czech Republic

4

C3

United States

1

D2

Czech Republic

1

D1

Russia

0

C2

Sweden

1

D3

Finland

2

D3

Finland

4

Bronze medal game

D1

Russia

7

D1

Russia

4

D3

Finland

3

C4

Belarus

1

C1

Canada

2

Quarter-finals

All times are local (UTC+9).

18 February 1998

Canada

4 – 1 (2-1, 2-0, 0-0)

Kazakhstan

The Big Hat, Nagano, Japan Attendance: 9,602

18 February 1998

Czech Republic

4 – 1 (0-1, 3-0, 1-0)

United States

The Big Hat, Nagano, Japan Attendance: 9,822

18 February 1998

Finland

2 – 1 (0-0, 0-0, 2-1)

Sweden

Aqua Wing Arena, Nagano, Japan Attendance: 5,044

	12 min	Penalties	12 min

18 February 1998

Russia

4 – 1 (1-0, 1-0, 2-0)

Belarus

Aqua Wing Arena, Nagano, Japan Attendance: 4,628

Semi-finals

All times are local (UTC+9).

20 February 1998

Canada

1 – 2 SO (0-0, 0-0, 1-1, 0-0) (SO: 0-1)

Czech Republic

The Big Hat, Nagano, Japan Attendance: 9,279

	25	Shots	29

20 February 1998

Finland

4 – 7 (0-2, 3-2, 1-3)

Russia

The Big Hat, Nagano, Japan Attendance: 9,640

Bronze medal game

All times are local (UTC+9).

21 February 1998

1 ! Finland

3 – 2 (2-1, 0-1, 1-0)

Canada

The Big Hat, Nagano, Japan Attendance: 9,875

	6 min	Penalties	8 min
	33	Shots	39

Gold medal game

All times are local (UTC+9).

22 February 1998

1 ! Czech Republic

1–0 (0–0, 0–0, 1–0)

Russia 1 !

The Big Hat, Nagano, Japan Attendance: 9,985

Game reference
	8 min	Penalties	4 min
	21	Shots	20

Roster notes

Several of general manager Bobby Clarke's selections for Team Canada were controversial. Eric Lindros was named captain over longtime leaders such as Wayne Gretzky, Steve Yzerman, and Ray Bourque (Clarke at the time was general manager of Lindros's NHL team, the Philadelphia Flyers). Rob Zamuner was a surprise pick, while Mark Messier and Scott Niedermayer were omitted.

Memorably, during the shootout in their semifinal match against the Czech Republic, Canadian coach Marc Crawford opted to have defenceman Ray Bourque shoot in the shootout instead of high-scoring forwards Wayne Gretzky and Steve Yzerman. Hockey commentators alternatively criticized Crawford's decision (Bourque, like the other four Canadian shooters, failed to score) and praised it on the grounds that Bourque was one of hockey's most accurate shooters at the time and Gretzky had always been surprisingly mediocre on breakaways.

Japanese fans were disappointed when their adopted hero, Paul Kariya, a Canadian of Japanese heritage and one of Canada's best stars, failed to make the Games due to a crosscheck by Gary Suter during regular season NHL play.

Final rankings

	Team
1 !	Czech Republic
1 !	Russia
1 !	Finland
4th	Canada
5th	Sweden
6th	United States
7th	Belarus
8th	Kazakhstan
9th	Germany
10th	Slovakia
11th	France
12th	Italy
13th	Japan
14th	Austria

References

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