Congratulations to the Canadian Men's and Women's hockey teams for winning GOLD at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Hockey Tournaments! During a tough and spirited battle the United States men's and women's hockey teams both earned the silver medals and in a strange twist, both Finland's men's and women's hockey teams took home the bronze medals! Congratulations to the medal winners!

The US men's Olypmic hockey team lost the Gold medal to Canada in overtime in what has to be described as one of the greatest Olympic hockey games of all time! Canada's favorite son, Sidney Crosby scored the winning goal on American goal tender Ryan Miller just over 7 minutes into overtime to pull out the gold medal win for Canada. Great showing by both teams!

Following negotiations in the National Hockey League's collective bargaining agreement, an agreement was reached allowing NHL participation in both the 2006 and 2010 Winter Olympics. Some NHL team owners opposed having their players participate in the tournament because of concerns that the league's players could get injured or become exhausted. Several players were injured during the 2006 Winter Olympics and were forced to miss NHL games. Gary Bettman addressed the issue saying that several format changes were being discussed, so that the tournament would be "a little easier for everybody."

2010 Olympic Hockey Qualification

Qualification for the men's tournament at the 2010 Winter Olympics was structured around the 2008 IIHF World Ranking. The top nine teams in the World Ranking after the 2008 Men's World Ice Hockey Championships received automatic berths into the Olympics, while the teams ranked 10th through 30th had an opportunity to qualify for the remaining three spots in the Olympics. Teams ranked 19th through 30th played in a first qualification round in November 2008, where the top three teams from the round advance to the second qualification round. Teams ranked 10th through 18th joined the three top teams from the first qualifying round to play in a second qualification round. The top three teams from the second qualifying round advanced to the Olympic tournament.

2010 Olympic Hockey Format

The twelve teams in the men's event are seeded into three groups of four teams. The NHL break will begin after February 14 and the tournament will start on February 16. In the Preliminary Round, a team plays one game against every other team in its own group (for a total of 18 Preliminary Round games). Following the completion of the preliminary round, the teams are ranked 1 through 12 based on the results. The top four ranked teams receive byes to the quarterfinals, with the remaining eight teams playing for the remaining four quarterfinal positions. Following that, the final eight teams play elimination rounds to determine the gold and silver medals, and the two losing teams of the semi-finals play for the bronze medal. Each team is allowed to have 20 skaters (forwards and defensemen) and two or three goaltenders, all of whom must be citizens of the country they represent.

2010 Olympic Hockey Participating Nations

Twelve teams will compete in the men's ice hockey tournament.