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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, defeating the host United States in both games.
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 on the 22-year anniversary of the upset of the Soviet team at Lake Placid in 1980. 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 North American/NHL players (though 21 of Russia's 22 players are also in the NHL) and argued that officials were fixing a Canada-USA final for North American audiences.
Canada had a lackluster start, losing 5–2 to Sweden, only managing to defeat Germany by a score of 3–2, and drawing with the Czech Republic. These performances prompted an emotional response from Team Canada manager Wayne Gretzky, in particular the referee's failure to call a clear hit from behind on Canada's Theoren Fleury in the game against the Czech Republic. However, Canada improved in the elimination round, defeating Finland 2–1, and easily sweeping surprise semi-finalist Belarus 7–1. Canada then won the gold medal, defeating the USA by three goals. Canada clearly dominated the game and achieved the result speculated. This was the first Olympic gold medal in 50 years for the Canadian ice hockey team. Canadian Joe Sakic was named tournament MVP, having scored twice and assisted on two more during the finals.
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 Olympic history. Afterwards, it was revealed that a "lucky loonie" (Canadian $1.00 coin) had been buried in the centre of the ice.
Another curious bit of trivia regarding the Canadian gold medal game victory is that it ended a 24 game home ice unbeaten streak for the United States. They lost their first game of the 1932 Lake Placid Olympic games to Canada, and proceeded to win 21 and tie 3 of their next 24 games at both Lake Placid games (1932 and 1980,) Squaw Valley (1960) and Salt Lake (2002,) where they won a combined total of two gold and two silver medals. Amazingly, the United States' two victories over the U.S.S.R. during this streak (in 1960 and 1980) were the only time the Americans ever beat the Soviet Union in Olympic or World Championship play.
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.
[edit] Preliminaries
[edit] Group A
Top team (shaded) advanced to the final round.
[edit] Group B
Top team (shaded) advanced to the final round.
[edit] Consolation Round
[edit] 13th Place Match
[edit] 11th Place Match
[edit] 9th Place Match
[edit] Final Round
[edit] Group C
[edit] Group D
[edit] Medal Round
[edit] Quarterfinals
[edit] Semifinals
[edit] Bronze Medal Game
[edit] Gold Medal Game
[edit] Leading scorers
[edit] Final Rankings
Canada
United States
Russia
Belarus
Sweden
Finland
Czech Republic
Germany
Latvia
Ukraine
Switzerland
Austria
Slovakia
France
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.
Eight countries competed. The top two teams in each pool advanced to the semi-finals.
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.
[edit] Preliminaries
[edit] Group A
Top two teams (shaded) advanced to semifinals.
Round Robin
Canada 7–0 
Kazakhstan
Sweden 3–2 Russia
Russia 0–7 Canada
Sweden 7–0 Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan 1–4 Russia
Canada 11–0 Sweden
[edit] Group B
Top two teams (shaded) advanced to semifinals.
Roun Robin
United States10–0 Germany
Finland4–0
China
Finland3–1 Germany
China1–12 United States
United States5–0 Finland
Germany5–5 China
[edit] Medal Round
[edit] Semifinals
[edit] Bronze Medal Game
[edit] Gold Medal Game
[edit] Final Rankings
- Canada
- United States
- Sweden
- Finland
- Russia
- Germany
- China
- Kazakhstan
Germany
Latvia
Austria
Slovakia
Belarus
Ukraine
Switzerland
France
Sweden
Czech Republic
Canada
United States
Finland
Russia
Kazakhstan
China
