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2002 Winter Olympic Games Ice hockey games were held at the E Center and Peaks Ice Arena in Salt Lake City and Provo, Utah. Both the men's and women's tournaments were won by Canada.
=Men=
Fourteen countries played in the tournament. Six countries, hockey powers (dubbed "The Super 6") Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Russia, Sweden and the United States of America were automatically admitted to the final eight. The other eight countries, Austria, Belarus, France, Germany, Latvia, Slovakia, Switzerland and Ukraine played in a preliminary round in two pools. The winners of those pools, Belarus and Germany, advanced to the final round with the other six.
The biggest surprise of the tournament was Belarus, 0-3-0 in Group D play, knocking off 3-0-0 Sweden in quarterfinal play. After that upset, the Swedish media held their players responsible for the loss, even going as far to publish their NHL salaries. The players responded by not returning to Sweden during the NHL break, although that was unlikely since the Olympics were held in the same continent as their NHL teams.
Another major surprise was the silver medal finish of Team USA, which was not considered a contender as it was steeped heavily in over-30 veterans. Although it retained most of the players from the 1998 team which had performed below expectations, this time it was coached by Herb Brooks who had been responsible for the "Miracle on Ice" over the Soviet Union during the 1980 Winter Olympics. Despite being close to the end of their careers, Mike Richter and Phil Housley put up phenomenal performances. Brett Hull, John LeClair, and Mike Modano formed the "Divine Line" which led the tournament in scoring. Ending up, USA finished second in the round robin.
USA's semi-final victory over Russia came coincidentally 22 years to the day of the upset of the Soviet team. USA stormed out to a 3-0 lead for the first two periods, before withstanding a furious two goal rally from the Russians to advance. Russian coach Slava Fetisov complained that the NHL referees were biased in favour of NHL players and that officials were fixing a Canada-USA final for North American audiences, however he did not mention that 21 of 22 Russian players were also in the NHL.
Canada had a lackluster start, losing 5-2 to Sweden, drawing with the Czech Republic, and only managing to defeat Germany by a score of 2-1. These performances prompted an emotional response from Team Canada manager Wayne Gretzky. However, Canada improved in the elimination round, defeating Finland 2-1, and easily sweeping surprise semi-finalist Belarus 7-1. Canada won the gold medal, defeating the USA in a game that was very close until a couple of late goals gave Canada its final three-goal margin. Canadian Joe Sakic was named tournament MVP.
Thanks to the much-anticipated Canada-USA matchup in the final in front of a North American home crowd, TV ratings for this match were the highest in Oympic history. Afterwards, it was revealed that a "lucky loonie" (Canadian $1.00 coin) had been buried in the centre of the ice.
The format of the tournament was the same one used in 1998 tournament in Nagano. It was controversial because the National Hockey League clubs would not release their players for the preliminary round. This severely hampered the campaigns of Germany and Slovakia, although the former country managed 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 changed for the 2006 tournament in an effort to address these criticisms.
Preliminaries
Group A
Top team (shaded) advanced to the final round.| Pld | W | L | T | GF | GA | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 3 | 10 | 3 | 6 | |||
| 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 11 | 12 | 3 | |
| 3 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 9 | 2 | ||
| 3 | 2 | 1 | 8 | 12 | 1 |
Group B
Top team (shaded) advanced to the final round.| Pld | W | L | T | GF | GA | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 4 | ||
| 3 | 2 | 1 | 9 | 5 | 4 | ||
| 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 7 | 9 | 3 | |
| 3 | 2 | 1 | 6 | 10 | 1 |
Belarus advanced on head-to-head tiebreaker (defeated Ukraine 1-0)
Final Round
Group C
| Pld | W | L | T | GF | GA | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 3 | 14 | 4 | 6 | |||
| 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 12 | 7 | 3 | |
| 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 8 | 10 | 3 | |
| 3 | 3 | 5 | 18 | 0 |
Group D
| Pld | W | L | T | GF | GA | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 2 | 1 | 16 | 3 | 5 | ||
| 3 | 2 | 1 | 11 | 8 | 4 | ||
| 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 9 | 9 | 3 | |
| 3 | 3 | 6 | 22 | 0 |
Medal Round
Quarterfinals
| 3:4 | ||
| 0:1 | ||
| 5:0 | ||
| 1:2 |
Semifinals
| 7:1 | ||
| 3:2 |
Bronze Medal Game
| 7:2 |
Gold Medal Game
| 5:2 |
Leading scorers
| Rk | GP | G | A | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mats Sundin4 | 5 | 4 | 9 |
| 2 | Brett Hull6 | 3 | 5 | 8 |
| 3 | John LeClair6 | 6 | 1 | 7 |
| 4 | Joe Sakic6 | 4 | 3 | 7 |
| 5 | Marian Hossa2 | 4 | 2 | 6 |
| 6 | Jean-Jacques Aeschlimann4 | 3 | 3 | 6 |
| 7 | Phillipe Bozon4 | 3 | 3 | 6 |
| 8 | Leonard Soccio7 | 3 | 3 | 6 |
| 9 | Mario Lemieux6 | 2 | 4 | 6 |
| 10 | Steve Yzerman6 | 2 | 4 | 6 |
| 11 | Nicklas Lidstrom4 | 1 | 5 | 6 |
| 12 | Mike Modano6 | 6 | 6 |
Final Rankings
=Women= This was the second time the Winter Olympics featured women's ice hockey.
The tournament marked the arrival of Sweden as a Tier Two team, on par with Finland. This increased the number of world class teams to four, Canada, the United States, Finland, and Sweden. As with the 1998 Winter Olympics, when the US joined Canada as Tier One teams, another major change in the status of International Women's Ice Hockey occurs at the Olympics.
| Medals | ||
|---|---|---|
| Gold | Silver | Bronze |
Sami Jo Small Becky Kellar Colleen Sostorics Therese Brisson Cherie Piper Cheryl Pounder Lori Dupuis Caroline Ouellette Danielle Goyette Jayna Hefford Jennifer Botterill Hayley Wickenheiser Dana Antal Kelly Bechard Tammy Shewchuk Kim St-Pierre Vicky Sunohara Isabelle Chartrand Cassie Campbell Geraldine Heaney | Sara Decosta Tara Mounsey Courtney Kennedy Angela Ruggiero Lyndsay Wall Karyn Bye Sue Merz Laurie Baker Andrea Kilbourne A.J. Mleczko Jenny Potter Julie Chu Shelley Looney Krissy Wendell Katie King Cammi Granato Natalie Darwitz Chris Bailey Tricia Dunn Sarah Tueting | Emelie Berggren Anna Andersson Maria Rooth Erika Holst Anna Vikman Evina Samuelsson Maria Larsson Kristina Bergstrand Anne-Louise Edstrand Josefin Pettersson Lotta Almblad Joa Elfsberg Gunilla Andersson Nanna Jansson Therese Sjolander Ylva Lindberg Danijela Rundqvist Ulrica Lindstrom Kim Martin Annica Ahlen |
Canada did not allow a goal in the preliminary round, while USA allowed only one goal. Canada trailed 3-2 to Finland going into the third period, but score 5 unanswered goals to advance to the final. USA had a fairly uneventful semi-final, shutting out Sweden. In the final, Canada outplayed USA despite being called for 13 penalties by the American referee (the Americans received four penalties). As a result, the game is considered somewhat controversial to many Canadian fans. The turning point of the game probably came when Canada's Jayna Hefford scored with one second left in the second period to give the Canadians a 3-1 lead going into the third period. This turned out to be the winning goal as the USA scored late in the third period on the power play to cut the lead to 3-2, but Canada hung on to win. It was the first women's hockey gold for Canada. Coming into the game, the Americans were 35-0 on their season, and had beaten the Canadians in their eight previous meetings. Canadian Hayley Wickenheiser was named tournament MVP.
Preliminaries
Group A
Top two teams (shaded) advanced to semifinals.| Pld | W | L | T | GF | GA | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 3 | 25 | 6 | ||||
| 3 | 2 | 1 | 10 | 13 | 4 | ||
| 3 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 11 | 2 | ||
| 3 | 3 | 1 | 18 | 0 |
Group B
Top two teams (shaded) advanced to semifinals.| Pld | W | L | T | GF | GA | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 3 | 28 | 1 | 6 | |||
| 3 | 2 | 1 | 7 | 6 | 4 | ||
| 3 | 2 | 1 | 6 | 18 | 1 | ||
| 3 | 2 | 1 | 6 | 21 | 1 |
Medal Round
Semifinals
| 7:3 | ||
| 4:0 |
Bronze Medal Game
| 2:1 |
Gold Medal Game
| 3:2 |
Final Rankings
2002 Winter Olympics | 2002 Winter Olympics events | 2002 in ice hockey | Ice hockey at the Olympics
Olympische Winterspiele 2002/Eishockey | Hockey sobre hielo en los Juegos Olímpicos de Salt Lake City 2002 | Hockey sur glace aux jeux Olympiques de 2002 | Hockey su ghiaccio alle olimpiadi invernali 2002 | ソルトレイクシティオリンピックにおけるアイスホッケー競技 | Olympische Winterspelen 2002/IJshockey | Ishockey under Vinter-OL 2002 | Jääkiekko 2002 talviolympialaisissa | OS-ishockey 2002
"Ice hockey at the 2002 Winter Olympics"