Men's Ice Hockey Tournament at the Winter Olympic Games Beijing 2022

[De_Gambassi 1,267]

26 minutes ago, Federer91 said:

Yes, because the constant adding of events and athletes has made it impossible to host only in a classical winter resort. You can't have only Cortina d'Ampezzo and it's nearby towns hosting, you have to have half of Northern Italy in there. This is why no one wants to host anymore, or if they do, they want it spread in 15 other places across the whole country.

All right, but at some point you'll have to consider this as the new normal. And as far as I'm concerned it's OK as I see little point in building multiple 10,000+ seats ice rinks up in the mountains. 

 

In that respect, having a couple more ice hockey teams wouldn't be that much of a trouble for the metropolis who are actually bidding to host the winter games.

 

But we all know it won't happen because !!! GENDER EQUITY ¡¡¡ In this marvelous timeline of ours, no sport would ever dare to ask for a bit more of male representation even if this sport happens to have 20 more male registered players than female ones and about a million more pro players.... 

[Jan Linha 597]

7 hours ago, hckošice said:

ROAD TO BEIJING 2022

 

Slovaks off to the Games

 

 

The 12^th and final men’s ice hockey berth at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing went down to the wire between Slovakia and Belarus. Before a sometimes delirious, often nervous, partisan crowd of 7,105 – the maxim allowed under public health regulations – at Bratislava’s Ondrej Nepela Arena, Slovakia won 2-1 to gain the spot.

 

In fact, Slovakia only needed one point to gain the spot, and that’s essentially what they got, with Libor Hudacek scoring the game-winning goal into an empty net as Belarus went for it all in the late going.

 

With the stakes so high, it’s no surprise that the teams came out full of energy, but Belarusian defenceman Sergei Sapego got carried away when he checked Juraj Slafkovsky from behind into the boards at 4:05. Sapego was assessed a major penalty and game misconduct and put enormous pressure on his team’s penalty-killing units, which had already had to kill off one penalty early on.

It took little time for the Slovaks to strike, with captain Marek Hrivik from the blueline setting up former Leksands IF linemate Peter Cehlarik for the one-timer that beat Danny Taylor over the glove to the near side. There was still 4:27 to go in the five-minute penalty, but if there was any relief for Belarus, it was that a double-minor for high-sticking to Adam Ruzicka negated the last 2:03 of the major.

 

Slovakia outshot Belarus 18-6 in the opening period but, thanks to the netminding of Taylor, it remained a one-goal game at the intermission.

 

And just over a minute into the second period, the game was tied. Shane Prince spun away from a check in the corner and fed the puck out front, where a wild scramble ensued, and captain Yegor Sharangovich was apparently the last Belarusian player to touch the puck before it crossed the goal line.

 

In general, the second period was played more cautiously than the first but there were chances – the best going to Slovakia’s Kristian Pospisil, who in the 28^th minute blocked a shoot-in attempt at his own blueline and was off to the races. In alone on Taylor, he interestingly chose to wind up and take a slap shot, which didn’t fool the Belarusian keeper.

 

The more time that passed, the less margin for error there was on either side, and the more nervous the fans in Bratislava became. As long as the game remained tied, Slovakia was okay, but just one goal against could put them in deep trouble and with each shot on Konrad, the Slovak fans held their collective breath.

 

As the third period moved into its last five minutes, Belarus began taking more and more chances, and with under three minutes to go and play headed into the Slovak end, Craig Woodcroft decided to pull Taylor for a sixth attacker. The move backfired as the puck bounced out into the netural zone, Hudacek gained centre and fired the game-winning goal into the empty net with 2:17 to play.

 

IIHF.COM

Bro, congrats! I am happy you made it!!! Would be pity to have Olympic tournament without  guys! And as long as it seems NHL guys may eventually play in Beijing, it might be a very interesting tournament!!!

[phelps 8,285]

14 hours ago, De_Gambassi said:

Not a salty question at all... But why did we go in 2006 from 14 to 12 teams at the olympics ? Was it the IOC, was it the NHL ?

the IOC didn't want anymore a double standard tournament, with the first part played only by the second tier teams (without the NHL players) and a very short second round + playoffs with only 8 teams playing with the NHLers (what happened to the Slovaks in SLC 2002 still hurts the IIHF)...

 

at the same time, the NHL didn't want a 16-day tournament as it was before with 12 teams taking part to the olympics, so they came to an agreement...only 12 teams, NHL players playing the whole tournament, but at the same time a shorter tournament with that stupid format we have right now (in order to have a shorter break of the NHL regular season)...

 

common interests, I guess...

[hckošice 15,520]

the winning jerseys were put up for auction. anyone can join, the starting price is 99 euros. the whole amount will go to the anti-cancer league. 

 

 

 

 

 

Pozrite si tento príspevok na Instagrame

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Príspevok, ktorý zdieľa Hockey Slovakia (@hockeyslovakia)

 

[Canada4thewin 90]

On 8/29/2021 at 4:23 PM, NearPup said:

Quite happy with the outcome of these qualification tournaments tbh. Slovakia and Latvia have some of the best hockey fans in the world and Denmark is by far the best hockey nation that had never qualified for the Olympics.

Is it still Bob Hartley that is coaching Latvia ?  

[hckošice 15,520]

2 minutes ago, Canada4thewin said:

Is it still Bob Hartley that is coaching Latvia ?  

No. He was replaced by Haris Vitolinš. Latvian who was former long time assistant of Oleg Znaroks at Russian bench, was his assistant also in PyeongChang when the OAR team won the gold medals.

[NearPup 3,496]

On 8/30/2021 at 3:38 AM, phelps said:

the IOC didn't want anymore a double standard tournament, with the first part played only by the second tier teams (without the NHL players) and a very short second round + playoffs with only 8 teams playing with the NHLers (what happened to the Slovaks in SLC 2002 still hurts the IIHF)...

 

at the same time, the NHL didn't want a 16-day tournament as it was before with 12 teams taking part to the olympics, so they came to an agreement...only 12 teams, NHL players playing the whole tournament, but at the same time a shorter tournament with that stupid format we have right now (in order to have a shorter break of the NHL regular season)...

 

common interests, I guess...

The current format is bad, but it's still better than the 1998/2002 format. I wish they could do the 2006 format again, but that's unlikely to happen because of the extra game.

[hckošice 15,520]

The Sunday SVK-BLR last period was watched by more than 700 000 TV viewers at the same time in the country, which made it the most watched sport TV program of this year in one point so far in Slovakia.

 

 

In comparison the football EURO final between Italy and England had 606 000 TV viewers at one point.

[phelps 8,285]

1 hour ago, hckošice said:

The Sunday SVK-BLR last period was watched by more than 700 000 TV viewers at the same time in the country, which made it the most watched sport TV program of this year in one point so far in Slovakia.

 

 

In comparison the football EURO final between Italy and England had 606 000 TV viewers at one point.

you can add 1 more viewer from Italy! 

[hckošice 15,520]

ROAD TO BEIJING 2022

 

NHL players are back

 

 

 

They’re back: NHL players to participate in 2022 Olympic Games

The National Hockey League (NHL), National Hockey League Players’ Association (NHLPA), and the IIHF have reached a joint agreement confirming NHL player participation in the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games. 

The agreement comes following months of negotiations between the three organizations to ensure a safer and secure participation for all NHL players competing at the Games. 

“I know that I can speak for hockey fans around the world when I say that we absolutely welcome the decision to bring back best-on-best ice hockey to the Olympics,” said IIHF President René Fasel. “We had many constructive discussions, and a lot of hard work was put into making this happen within the time we set out for ourselves, and I want to thank all parties involved for their support and commitment.”

 

This will be the sixth Winter Olympic men’s hockey tournament that includes NHL players, beginning with the 1998 Nagano Games. NHL players did not participate in the last Olympic Games in PyeongChang in 2018, when the Olympic Athletes from Russia team defeated Germany, 4-3 in overtime – the golden goal coming from Kirill Kaprizov, who made his NHL debut with the Minnesota Wild last season and is a candidate for the men’s ROC team. 

“We welcome the decision of the NHL, which will allow their players to participate in the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022. All the parties who were involved in coming to this agreement should be commended for this excellent result,” said IOC Sports Director Kit McConnell.

“We understand how passionately NHL Players feel about representing and competing for their countries,” said Bill Daly, deputy commissioner for the NHL. “We are very pleased that we were able to conclude arrangements that will allow them to resume best on best competition on the Olympic stage.“

"Representing their country in the Olympics is important to the players, even in these uncertain times," said Don Zavelo, NHLPA General Counsel. "The players look forward to pulling on their nation's hockey sweater at the upcoming 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing as they compete for the gold medal."

The agreement also means the potential Olympic debuts for some of the world’s top NHL players such as Connor McDavid (Canada), David Pastrnak (Czech Republic), Sebastian Aho (Finland), Nikita Kucherov (ROC), Victor Hedman (Sweden), Leon Draisaitl (Germany), and Auston Matthews (USA), among many other potential national team candidates.

The tournament will include 12 countries seeded into three groups. Joining the top-eight nations that were seeded into the tournament according to the 2019 IIHF World Ranking – Canada, ROC, Finland, Sweden, Czech Republic, USA, Germany, and Switzerland – will be tournament hosts China as well as the recently qualified teams from Slovakia, Latvia and Denmark, who earned the final seeds last weekend in the Men’s Final Olympic Qualification tournaments. 
This agreement also provides the NHL and NHLPA with flexibility to monitor the COVID-19 situation and, ultimately to not send NHL players if the COVID conditions require such.

Click here for more information on the 2022 Olympic Winter Games and qualification.

The game schedule for the tournament is currently being developed and will be released in the coming weeks.

 

IIHF.COM