Ice hockey is a team sport in which five players (four skaters and one goalie) compete to win by scoring goals. It is governed by the International Ice Hockey Federation, founded on 15 May 1908.
Olympic tournaments are played in the Winter Games and the men’s and women’s competitions have been held at every Summer Games since 1998. The men’s event is the most prestigious, contested by the top eight teams in the world after qualifying through the four-team preliminaries.
The most memorable Olympic ice hockey games often feature tense overtime periods, with the winner determined in a shootout if no team wins during the 10-minute sudden death period. The format differs from the NHL’s, with Olympic shootouts requiring five players from each team to take their penalty shots, rather than just three.
In 1972, Herb Brooks, the U.S. team’s coach and a steadfast believer in European-style game tactics, envisioned his team playing “like we’re all wearing girders.” As the opening period began at Antwerp’s Olympiastadion arena, the Soviets led 2-0 behind Vladimir Krutov and Sergei Makarov. But just before the first intermission, Buzz Schneider of the Winnipeg Falcons scored the Americans’ lone goal with a long slap shot.
The American victory over the Soviet Union – dubbed the Miracle on Ice – is still celebrated today, and it paved the way for future upsets. In the 1990s, Sweden won its first gold medal in a thrilling shootout classic against Canada, and the Czech Republic (now the Czech Republic) rode Dominik Hasek’s incredible goaltending to win in 1998. In the 2000s, Canada reset its own story by winning two golds in 2002 and 2010, while Russia – now known as OAR – topped the podium in 2018 and 2022.