ICE HOCKEY AT THE 1998 WINTER OLYMPICS

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, with Canada winning, Canada having won all the competitions in previous years in women's hockey, and the United States perpetually finishing second, with no one else up their level of play. However, the United States became the first country to win gold in women's ice hockey at the Olympics.
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.
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.
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 ago. 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."
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.
Games were played at The Big Hat and Aqua Wing Arena.
Ice Hockey medal winners at the 1998 Winter Olympics:
=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.

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 Jiří Šlégr Richard Šmehlík Martin Straka Jaroslav Špaček Petr Svoboda	Pavel Bure Valeri Bure Mikhail Shtalenkov Alexei Gusarov Alexei Yashin Dmitri Yushkevich Alexei Zhamnov Alexei Zhitnik Valeri Kamensky Darius Kasparaitis Andrei Kovalenko Igor Kravchuk Sergei Krivokrasov Boris Mironov Dmitri Mironov Aleksey Morozov Sergei Nemchinov German Titov Andrei Trefilov Oleg Shevtsov Sergei Gonchar Sergei Fedorov Valeri Zelepukin	Teemu Selänne Aki Berg Tuomas Grönman Raimo Helminen Sami Kapanen Saku Koivu Jari Kurri Janne Laukkanen Jere Lehtinen Juha Lind Jyrki Lumme Jarmo Myllys Mika Nieminen Janne Niinimaa Teppo Numminen Ville Peltonen Kimmo Rintanen Ari Sulander Jukka Tammi Esa Tikkanen Kimmo Timonen Antti Törmänen Juha Ylönen

Contents

Preliminaries

Group A

Group B

Consolation Round

13th Place Match

11th Place Match

9th Place Match

Final Round

Group A

Group B

Medal Round

Quarterfinals

Semifinals

Bronze Medal Game

Gold Medal Game

Leading scorers

Final Rankings

Bronze Medal Game

Gold Medal Game

Final Rankings

Preliminaries

Group A

Top team (shaded) advanced to the final round.

Team	Pld	W	L	T	GF	GA	Pts
	3	2	0	1	14	11	'5'
	3	1	1	1	9	9	'3'
	3	1	2	0	11	11	'2'
	3	0	1	2	9	12	'2'

★ February 7

	'5:3'
	'2:2'

★ February 8

	'4:3'
	'5:5'

★ February 10

	'5:2'
	'4:3'

Group B

Top team (shaded) advanced to the final round.

Team	Pld	W	L	T	GF	GA	Pts
	3	2	0	1	14	4	'5'
	3	2	1	0	7	9	'4'
	3	1	2	0	5	8	'2'
	3	0	2	1	5	10	'1'

★ February 7

	'4:0'
	'1:3'

★ February 9

	'2:5'
	'8:2'

★ February 10

	'2:0'
	'2:2'

Consolation Round

13th Place Match

★ February 11

''

'4:3'

11th Place Match

★ February 11

''

'5:1'

9th Place Match

★ February 11

''

'4:2'

Final Round

Group A

Team	Pld	W	L	T	GF	GA	Pts
	3	3	0	0	12	3	'6'
	3	2	1	0	11	7	'4'
	3	1	2	0	8	10	'2'
	3	0	3	0	4	15	'0'

★ February 13

	'5:0'
	'4:2'

★ February 14

	'5:2'
	'3:2'

★ February 16

	'5:2'
	'4:1'

Group B

Team	Pld	W	L	T	GF	GA	Pts
	3	3	0	0	15	6	'6'
	3	2	1	0	12	4	'4'
	3	1	2	0	11	9	'2'
	3	0	3	0	6	25	'0'

★ February 13

	'9:2'
	'3:0'

★ February 15

	'8:2'
	'4:3'

★ February 16

	'8:2'
	'2:1'

Medal Round

Quarterfinals

★ February 18

''	'4:1'
''	'4:1'
	'1:2'	'
''	'4:1'

Semifinals

★ February 20

	'1:2'	''
	'4:7'	''

Bronze Medal Game

★ February 21

''

'3:2'

Gold Medal Game

★ February 21

''

'1:0'

Leading scorers

Rk	Team	GP	G	A	Pts	PIM
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	Alexander Koreshkov	7	3	6	9	2
5	Philippe Bozon	4	5	2	7	4
6	K. Shafranov	7	4	3	7	6
7	Dominik 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

Final Rankings

1. Czech Republic

2. Russia

3. Finland

4. Canada

5. Sweden

6. United States

7. Belarus

8. Kazakhstan

9. Germany

10. Slovakia

11. France

12. Italy

13. Japan

14. Austria



=Women=
1998 was the first time the Winter Olympics featured Women's Ice Hockey.
The victory of United States of America versus Canada in the Gold Medal final, was a major event in International Women's Hockey. Before this, Canada was the only team to ever win major international competitions.

Gold:'	Silver:'	Bronze:'
Chris Bailey Laurie Baker Alana Blahoski Lisa Brown-Miller Karyn Bye Colleen Coyne Sara Decosta Tricia Dunn Cammi Granato Katie King Shelley Looney Sue Merz Allison Mleczko Tara Mounsey Vicki Movsessian Angela Ruggiero Jenny Potter Sarah Tueting Gretchen Ulion Sandra Whyte	Jennifer Botterill Therese Brisson Cassie Campbell Judy Diduck Nancy Drolet Lori Dupuis Danielle Goyette Geraldine Heaney Jayna Hefford Becky Kellar Katheryn Mccormack Karen Nystrom Lesley Reddon Manon Rhéaume Laura Schuler Fiona Smith France St-Louis Vicky Sunohara Hayley Wickenheiser Stacy Wilson	Sari Fisk Kirsi Hänninen Satu Huotari Marianne Ihalainen Johanna Ikonen Sari Krooks Emma Laaksonen Sanna Lankosaari Katja Lehti Marika Lehtimäki Riikka Nieminen Marja-Helena Pälvilä Tuula Puputti Karoliina Rantamäki Tiia Reima Katja Riipi Päivi Salo Maria Selin Liisa-Maria Sneck Petra Vaarakallio

1st and 2nd (Shaded Gold) Advanced to Gold Medal Game

3rd and 4th Place (Shaded Green) Advanced to Bronze Medal Game

Team	Pld	W	L	T	GF	GA	Pts
	5	5	0	0	33	7	'10'
	5	4	1	0	28	12	'8'
	5	3	2	0	27	10	'6'
China	5	2	3	0	10	15	'4'
	5	1	4	0	10	21	'2'
	5	0	5	0	2	45	'0'

Bronze Medal Game

''

'4:1'

China

Gold Medal Game

''

'3:1'

Final Rankings

# United States
# Canada
# Finland
# China
# Sweden
# Japan