Ice hockey at the 1998 Winter Olympics – Men's tournament

The men's ice hockey tournament at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, was the 19th Olympic Championship. The Czech Republic, which emerged from the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993, won its first winter gold medal, becoming only the seventh nation to win Olympic ice hockey gold. The tournament, held from February 7 to February 22, was played at the Big Hat and Aqua Wing arenas.
This was the first Olympics in which the National Hockey League (NHL) took a break (17 days, from February 8 to February 24) allowing national teams to include NHL players from each country.https://www.hockey-reference.com/leagues/NHL_1998_games.html Unlike basketball's Dream Team, where the players stayed in a five-star hotel in Barcelona, NHL players were required to stay in the Olympic Village like other athletes.
The Canadian team, despite a strong start in the round robin, lost their semifinal match against the Czech Republic in a shootout, and played a lackluster bronze medal game, disappointing Canadians who wished for Wayne Gretzky to get an Olympic medal. In the final match, the Czech Republic shut-out Russia to win the gold medal.
== Qualification ==
==Preliminary round==
=== Group A ===
Top team (shaded) advanced to the first round.
Team	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
 	3	2	0	1	14	11	+3	5
 	3	1	1	1	9 	9 	0 	3
 	3	1	2	0	11	11	0 	2
 	3	0	1	2	9 	12	−3	2
All times are local (UTC+9).
=== Group B ===
Top team (shaded) advanced to the first round.
Team	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
 	3	2	0	1	14	4 	+10	5
 	3	2	1	0	7 	9 	−2 	4
 	3	1	2	0	5 	8 	−3 	2
 	3	0	2	1	5 	10	−5 	1
All times are local (UTC+9).
==Consolation round==
===13th place match===
All times are local (UTC+9).
===11th place match===
All times are local (UTC+9).
===9th place match===
All times are local (UTC+9).
==First round==
===Group C===
Team	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
 	3	3	0	0	15	6 	+9 	6
 	3	2	1	0	12	4 	+8 	4
 	3	1	2	0	11	9 	+2 	2
 	3	0	3	0	6 	25	−19	0
All times are local (UTC+9).
===Group D===
Team	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
 	3	3	0	0	12	3 	+9 	6
 	3	2	1	0	11	7 	+4 	4
 	3	1	2	0	8 	10	−2 	2
 	3	0	3	0	4 	15	−11	0
All times are local (UTC+9).
==Final round==
===Quarter-finals===
All times are local (UTC+9).
===Semi-finals===
All times are local (UTC+9).
===Bronze medal game===
All times are local (UTC+9).
===Gold medal game===
All times are local (UTC+9).
==Statistics==
===Average age===
Team Canada was the oldest team in the tournament, with an average age of 30 years. Team Kazakhstan was the youngest, averaging 26 years and 11 months. The gold medal-winning Czech Republic team averaged 27 years and 2 months. The tournament average was 28 years and 1 month.https://www.quanthockey.com/olympics/en/teams/team-canada-players-1998-olympics-stats.html
===Leading scorers===
Rank	Player 	 	 	 	 	
1 	Teemu Selänne 	5	4	6	10	8
2 	Saku Koivu 	6	2	8	10	4
3 	Pavel Bure 	6	9	0	9 	2
4 	Aleksandr Koreshkov 	7	3	6	9 	2
5 	Philippe Bozon 	4	5	2	7 	4
6 	Konstantin Shafranov	7	4	3	7 	6
7 	Dominic Lavoie 	4	5	1	6 	8
8 	Jere Lehtinen 	6	4	2	6 	2
9 	Alexei Yashin 	6	3	3	6 	0
10 	Serge Poudrier 	6	2	4	6 	4
11 	Sergei Fedorov 	6	1	5	6 	8
== Medal-winning rosters ==
Gold: 	Silver: 	Bronze:
Josef Beránek Jan Čaloun Roman Čechmánek Jiří Dopita Roman Hamrlík Dominik Hašek Milan Hejduk Milan Hnilička Jaromír Jágr František Kučera Robert Lang David Moravec Pavel Patera Libor Procházka Martin Procházka Robert Reichel Martin Ručínský Vladimír Růžička-C Jiří Šlégr Richard Šmehlík Jaroslav Špaček Martin Straka Petr Svoboda	Pavel Bure-C Valeri Bure Oleg Chevtsov Sergei Fedorov Sergei Gonchar Alexei Gusarov Valeri Kamensky Darius Kasparaitis Andrei Kovalenko Igor Kravchuk Sergei Krivokrasov Boris Mironov Dmitri Mironov Alexei Morozov Sergei Nemchinov Mikhail Shtalenkov German Titov Andrei Trefilov Alexei Yashin Dmitri Yushkevich Valeri Zelepukin Alexei Zhitnik Alexei Zhamnov	Aki-Petteri Berg Tuomas Grönman Raimo Helminen Sami Kapanen Saku Koivu-C Jari Kurri Janne Laukkanen Jere Lehtinen Juha Lind Jyrki Lumme Jarmo Myllys Mika Nieminen Janne Niinimaa Teppo Numminen Ville Peltonen Kimmo Rintanen Teemu Selänne Ari Sulander Jukka Tammi Esa Tikkanen Kimmo Timonen Antti Törmänen Juha Ylönen
Source:
* Gold – 
* Silver – 
* Bronze – 
==Roster notes==
Several of general manager Bobby Clarke's selections for Team Canada were controversial. Eric Lindros was named captain over longtime leaders such as Wayne Gretzky, Steve Yzerman, and Ray Bourque (Clarke at the time was general manager of Lindros's NHL team, the Philadelphia Flyers). Rob Zamuner was a surprise pick, while Mark Messier and Scott Niedermayer were omitted. Japanese fans were disappointed when their adopted hero, Paul Kariya, a Canadian of Japanese heritage and one of Canada's best stars, failed to make the Games due to a head injury sustained from a crosscheck by Gary Suter during regular season NHL play.http://www.apnewsarchive.com/1998/Czechs-Win-Hockey-Gold/id-1b8a324826480f0298c434dd488e0645
Memorably, during the shootout in their semifinal match against the Czech Republic, Canadian coach Marc Crawford opted to have defenceman Ray Bourque shoot in the shootout instead of high-scoring forwards Wayne Gretzky and Steve Yzerman. Hockey commentators alternatively criticized Crawford's decision (Bourque, like the other four Canadian shooters, failed to score) or 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.
==Controversy==
Swedish player Ulf Samuelsson was discovered to have applied for American citizenship. Under Swedish law at the time, when one acquires a foreign passport, their citizenship is annulled. Samuelsson was ejected after having played the first game against Belarus, although Sweden kept their points from the win. The Czech National Olympic Committee felt that Sweden should lose the points and filed a protest with the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which was rejected., Story #72–Reporter's scoop reveals that Samuelsson is not a Swede in Nagano-98.
The United States team, loaded with 17 NHL stars, was eliminated in the first game of the knockout round, and responded by trashing their rooms in the Olympic Village. Three apartments were vandalized, ten chairs were broken and three fire extinguishers were emptied. Six of those chairs and one fire extinguisher were thrown down five stories into a courtyard.
==Final rankings==
 	Team
 	
 	
 	
4th 	
5th 	
6th 	
7th 	
8th 	
9th 	
10th	
11th	
12th	
13th	
14th	
 These standings are presented as the IIHF has them,IIHF Media Guide and Record Book (2011) p. 118 however both the NHL an IOC maintain that all quarterfinal losers are ranked equal at 5th.National Hockey League Official Guide and Record Book (2002) p.13LA84 foundation Official Report of the XVIII Olympic Winter Games p.168
==References==
==External links==
* https://web.archive.org/web/20120613015209/http://hokej.snt.cz/oh/oh1998.html 
* http://www.hockeyarchives.info/JO1998.htm 
* Hockey Nut – 1998 Olympic Hockey 
* Marcolympics – Ice Hockey 1998 
* IIHF: Nagano 1998 in Web Archive 
* la84 foundation – Nagano 1998 Official Report (171–180) 
 
Men's tournament