The Olympics wrapped up on Feb. 22 when the men’s hockey Team USA won the gold medal game in overtime 2-1 against Team Canada. Just hours before, Finland took home Bronze 6-1 in their final game against Slovakia.
Throughout the men’s tournament, Team USA went undefeated in all six of their games. With a team composed of all NHL players, fans expected a good tournament from them. But there were concerns that the team had no chemistry at the beginning. That proved otherwise during and after the Gold match against Canada. Although forward Jack Hughes ultimately scored the winning goal, many (including Hughes himself) believe that the win was mostly thanks to the team’s goalie Connor Hellebuyck who blocked 41 of Canada’s 42 shots in that game. Following their victory, the team gathered on the ice for a group photo to pay tribute to John Michael Gaudreau, an Olympic-prospect for Team USA who tragically passed away in 2024. The photo tribute featured his jersey and his young children.
Despite only taking home silver, Team Canada had a pretty stacked team with several big names from the NHL like Team Captain Sidney Crosby and forward Macklin Celebrini. Many fans and even some NHL players themselves projected that Team Canada would place in the top two, so when they went undefeated all the way until the final game, nobody was surprised. Most of their games went without trouble–except one. In the game against France, Canadian player Tom Wilson and French player Pierre Crinon got into a fight (which is prohibited in Olympic hockey) near the end of the third period, resulting in a 5+20 minute fighting penalty for both players, a two minute roughing penalty for both players and a suspension from the Olympics for Crinon.
Both teams for the bronze medal game had a pretty similar tournament with Team Finland having two losses and four wins, and Team Slovakia having three losses and three wins. Initially, in their first game against each other in the preliminary rounds, Team Slovakia beat Team Finland 4-1, but it turned around in the Bronze medal game when Finland won 6-1. Compared to the top three placing teams, Team Slovakia was a mix of non-NHL and NHL players, with only seven men on their roster being NHL players.
For the most part, the men’s hockey tournament went by smoothly. And on top of Team USA winning both the men’s and women’s hockey tournaments, the USA won 12 gold medals and a total of 33 medals overall throughout the entire Olympics.
