Ice hockey at the 1998 Winter Olympics

Overview

Games were played at The Big Hat and Aqua Wing Arena.

Women's Tournament

1998 was the first year that featured women in ice hockey competition. It was greatly anticipated that the women's gold medal match would feature Canada versus the United States. Canada was favored to come out on top as they had having won all the competitions in previous years in women's hockey, and the United States perpetually finishing second, while no other national teams could match their level of play. However, the United States beat Canada in the final became the first country to win gold in women's ice hockey at the Olympics.

Men's Tournament

1998 was the first year that the modern NHL took a break to allow its players to participate in the Olympics, allowing the United States and Canada to field teams with professionals of top calibre, as the European teams were doing since the IIHF first allowed professionals into the Olympics.

Both Canada and the United States were heavily favoured; they had previously faced off in the final of the 1996 World Cup of Hockey. The United States left the tournament being remembered as the "ugly Americans". After a below-expectations performance in the tournament which included only one win, several American players trashed their hotel rooms (the US squad did not stay in the Olympic village), and they left without apologizing. The Canadian team, despite a strong start in the round robin, failed to play well after losing their semifinal match, and disappointed Canadians who wished for Wayne Gretzky to get an Olympic medal, playing a lacklustre bronze medal game.

Memorably, during the shootout in their semifinal match against the Czech Republic, Canadian coach Marc Crawford opted to have defenseman Ray Bourque shoot in the shootout instead of NHL legends 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. Thanks to the goaltending of Dominik Hašek who was considered the best goaltender throughout Olympic play, the Czech Republic won the shootout and went on to win the semi-final en route to winning the gold medal.

Japanese fans were disappointed when their adopted hero, Paul Kariya, a Canadian of Japanese heritage and one of Team Canada's best stars, failed to make the games due to a vicious crosscheck by Gary Suter during regular season NHL play. The Canadian media has accused Suter and other American players of deliberately attempting to injure Canadian players in the final NHL games leading up to the Olympics. The Japanese shifted their attentions to a Canadian player of Japanese extraction, Vicky Sunohara, and were pleased with a vicarious silver medal from Canada's women's team.

The format of the men's tournament was also criticized because the National Hockey League 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.

US Men's hotel vandalism

An unknown number of players on the U.S. men's hockey team trashed their rooms at the Olympic athlete's village on February 19 morning, after they were eliminated from the Olympic tournament by losing to the Czech Republic 4-1 about 10 hours earlier. Ten chairs were broken, and three fire extinguishers were emptied inside three apartments. Six of the chairs and one of the fire extinguishers were then thrown from the fifth floor into the courtyard below. One door was dented, as were several walls. Floors and beds were also damaged. No one was injured by the vandalism. No one had ever confessed and no one had ever been punished.

U.S. captain Chris Chelios was at a restaurant when the rooms were damaged. He wrote a $3000 check for damages and apologized for his teammates, allowing those responsible to remain anonymous.

"Maybe what they're talking about are the chairs." Jeremy Roenick said. "The chairs and furniture that we had were definitely not made for NHL players. The chairs would fall apart right there, just sitting on them. We went through nine chairs with five guys in the apartment. It was ridiculous."

"That wasn't anything," thundered U.S. assistant coach Lou Vairo. "Who hasn't broken a few chairs? I bet you guys [the media] have busted some furniture when you see the wife's credit card bill at the end of the month."

"This wasn't vandalism or wanton destruction of property," Bob Goodenow said. "This wasn't nearly as bad as people are making it out to be. I saw it. Some folding chairs got broken. They were weak and break when you lean back on them. The fire extinguisher, there's no excuse for that. There's no excuse for any of it. I'm not condoning it, but it wasn't as bad as it appears."

=Men=1998 was the first year that the modern NHL took a break to allow its players to participate in the Olympics, as the European leagues had done since the IIHF first allowed professionals into the Olympics.

*February 8

*February 7

Consolation Round

13th Place Match

*February 11

Final Round

Group A

*February 16
*February 15

emifinals

*February 20

Leading scorers

Preliminary round

Bronze Medal Game

Gold Medal Game

Final Rankings

#
#
#
#
#
#