1998 Olympics The 1998 Winter Olympics were held in Nagano , Japan . Venues . Games were played at The Big Hat and Aqua Wing Arena . 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 had been 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 their hotel 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 has ever confessed and no one has ever been punished . United States 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 . " Preliminaries . Group A . Top team ( shaded ) advanced to the final round . Group B . Top team ( shaded ) advanced to the final round . Final round . Group B . < br > 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 and became the first country to win gold in women ' s ice hockey at the Olympics . 1st and 2nd place ( shaded gold ) advanced to gold medal game . < br > 3rd and 4th place ( shaded green ) advanced to bronze medal game .