The Olympic Games were originally intended for amateur athletes. However, the advent of the state-sponsored "full-time amateur athlete" of the Eastern Bloc countries further eroded the ideology of the pure amateur, as it put the self-financed amateurs of the Western countries at a disadvantage. The Soviet Union entered teams of athletes who were all nominally students, soldiers, or working in a profession, but many of whom were in reality paid by the state to train on a full-time basis. [1] In 1986, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) voted to allow professional athletes to compete in the Olympic Games starting in 1988. The National Hockey League (NHL) was initially reluctant to allow its players to compete because the Olympics are held in the middle of the NHL season, and the league would have to halt play if many of its players participated. Eventually, NHL players were admitted, starting in 1998. [2]
From 1924 to 1988, the tournament started with a round-robin series of games and ended with the medal round. Medals were awarded based on points accumulated during that round. In 1992, the playoffs were introduced for the first time since 1920. In 1998, the format of the tournament was adjusted to accommodate the NHL schedule; a preliminary round was played without NHL players or the top six teams—Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Russia, Sweden, and the United States—followed by a final round that included them. The tournament format was changed again in 2006; every team played five preliminary games with the full use of NHL players.
The games of the tournament follow the rules of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), which differ slightly from the rules used in the NHL. In the men's tournament, Canada was the most successful team of the first three decades, winning six of seven gold medals from 1924 to 1952. Czechoslovakia, Sweden, and the United States were also competitive during this period and won multiple medals. Between 1920 and 1968, the Olympic hockey tournament was also counted as the Ice Hockey World Championship for that year. The Soviet Union first participated in 1956 and overtook Canada as the dominant international team, winning seven of the nine tournaments in which they participated. The United States won gold medals in 1960 and 1980, which included their "Miracle on Ice" upset of the Soviet Union. Canada went 50 years without a gold medal before winning one in 2002 and following it with back-to-back wins in 2010 and 2014. Other nations to win gold include Great Britain in 1936, the Unified Team in 1992, Sweden in 1994 and 2006, the Czech Republic in 1998, Russia (as OAR) in 2018, and Finland in 2022. Other medal-winning nations include Switzerland, Germany, and Slovakia.
In July 1992, the IOC voted to approve women's hockey as an Olympic event; it was first held at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano. The Nagano Organising Committee was hesitant to include the event because of the additional costs of staging the tournament, but an agreement was reached that limited the field to six teams and ensured that no additional facilities would be built. The Canadian teams have dominated the event. The United States won the first tournament in 1998 and again in 2018. Canada has won all of the other tournaments (2002–2014, 2022).While the general characteristics of the game remain constant, the exact rules depend on the particular code of play being used. The two most important codes are those of the IIHF [53] and the NHL. [54] Both of these codes, and others, originated from the Canadian rules of ice hockey of the early 20th century.
Ice hockey is played on a hockey rink. During normal play, there are six players on ice skates per side, one of whom is the goaltender. The objective of the game is to score goals by shooting a hard vulcanised rubber disc, the puck, into the opponent's goal net at the opposite end of the rink. The players use their sticks to pass or shoot the puck.
With certain restrictions, players may redirect the puck with any part of their body. Players may not hold the puck in their hands and are prohibited from using their hands to pass the puck to their teammates unless they are in the defensive zone. Players, however, can knock a puck out of the air with their hands. Players are prohibited from kicking the puck into the opponent's goal, though unintentional redirections off the skate are permitted. Players may not intentionally bat the puck into the net with their hands.
Hockey is an off-side game, meaning that forward passes are allowed, unlike in rugby. Before the 1930s, hockey was an on-side game, meaning that only backward passes were allowed. Those rules emphasised individual stick handling to drive the puck forward. With the arrival of offside rules, the forward pass transformed hockey into a true team sport, where individual performance diminished in importance relative to team play, which could now be coordinated over the entire surface of the ice as opposed to merely rearward players. [55]
The six players on each team are typically divided into three forwards, two defensemen, and one goaltender. The term skaters typically applies to all players except goaltenders. The forward positions consist of a centre and two wingers: a left wing and a right wing. Forwards often play together as units or lines, with the same three forwards always playing together. The defensemen usually stay together as a pair, generally divided between left and right. Left and right-side wingers or defensemen are generally positioned on the side on which they carry their stick. A substitution of an entire unit at once is called a line change. Teams typically employ alternate sets of forward lines and defensive pairings when shorthanded or on a power play. The goaltender stands in a, usually blue, semi-circle called the crease in the defensive zone, keeping pucks out of the goal. Substitutions are permitted at any time during the game, although during a stoppage of play, the home team is permitted the final change. When players are substituted during play, it is called changing on the fly. An NHL rule added in the 2005–06 season prevents a team from changing their line after they ice the puck.
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