Ice Hockey Tournament at Cortina d´Ampezzo 1956
The ex-Soviet Union Olympic debut ended in a absolute dominance of the tournament, the first ever USSR Olympic team won the whole tournament winning all matches.
The Men´s Ice Hockey Tournament at the 1956 Winter Olympic Games was played at the Olympic Stadium and at the Appollonio Stadium in Cortina d´Ampezzo, Italy from 26th January to 4th February 1956. It was the 8th Ice Hockey Olympic Tournament and was also counted as the 23rd World Championships and 34th European Ice Hockey Championships.
The world started to notice a new Hockey powerhouse and a new super dominance in this sport started to raise. The Soviet Union made it´s Olympic debut in 1956, The Athletes from the former Soviet Union won more medals than any other nation, and in the Ice Hockey they absolutely dominated the competition as well. Really interesting fact, since the nation started to compete internationally in this sport only since 1954.
The tournament had a 2 rounds format. All 10 participating Nations were divided into 3 preliminary Round pools, the first 2 teams from each group advanced to the final stage played in a Round-Robin format (Each team faced every opponent) the remaining 4 non-qualified teams played a Consolation round-robin for 7th-10th places.
There was also some noteworthy moments that happened already before the start of the games. Especially around the Germans teams, Both East and West German teams wanted to participate, but the IOC announced they will allow only one team to compete under a unified German flag, a situation that was unfortunately not going to be solved so easy, since both teams couldn´t come to a agreement how the team will be formed, so they decided to play a Qualification game before the games to got the right to represent Germany, and it´s the West Germany who won the match and represented the so-called Unified German team in Cortina. The East Germans at least hosted the same year the often called "B" category world Championships in Berlin for the non participating countries.
The USSR won all their games and won their first historic Olympic gold in their debut under the five rings, it was their second World Championships title and 3rd European title in their 3rd International competition. The United States took silver and Canada won their 8th Olympic medal in their 8th Olympic participation, however, this time it was the first Bronze. Canada was represented this time by the Kitchener-Waterloo Dutchmens.
Image from the match USSR - Canada 2-0
In the preliminary round there wasn´t any big surprises to mention about, All favorites advanced to the final round without noticeable problems. Canada and the Unified German team advanced from Group A, Czechoslovakia and USA from Group B and USSR and Sweden from the Group C. Canada, Czechoslovakia and USSR as unbeaten teams.
The Final round started with a very important match between the United States and Canada and USA defeated their neighbors for the very first time in Olympic History 4-1, since Canada lost also in their last game to the ex-USSR 0-2, but defeated all their remaining rivals in the final-six they took the bronze. The Soviet Union won all matches to claim gold, including the crucial match over the USA 4-0.
The Consolation round was won by the Host Italy winning all 3 matches.
Czechoslovakia send to Cortina a similar team to the one from the Oslo Games led by some great players as the Bubník brothers or Defencer Karel Gut and forward Vladimír Zábrodský, but failed to fulfill the medal expectations, In the first round it looked promising, the team won both games 4-3 against USA and 4-0 against Poland. but lost already their first match in the final round to Canada 3-6 a lost which came in a very wrong moment, only few hours later the next day they had to play again this time against Sweden, and it appeared that the players suffered a strong blow especially on the mental side, they absolutely failed in this game and lost 0-5, meaning the end of any medal hopes. then came another lose this time in the "Friendly" match against the "Beloved Big Brother" of USSR 4-7. The only points and only win in the final round was achieved against the German Unified team 9-3 and the unsuccessful tourney was closed by another failure with the USA 4-9. The team at least won the Continental Bronze medals behind the USSR and Sweden.
Picture from the game between the gold and silver medalists USSR and United States in the first day of the Final Round
Final Ranking:
1. Soviet Union
2. United States
3. Canada (Represented by Kitchener-Waterloo Dutchmens)
4. Sweden
5. Czechoslovakia
6. Germany Unified Team (Composed only by West Germany players)
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7. Italy - Consolation Round
8. Poland - Consolation Round
9. Switzerland - Consolation Round
10. Austria - Consolation Round