Men's ice hockey at the XXI Olympic Winter Games
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Venues |
Canada Hockey Place UBC Thunderbird Arena |
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Dates | 16–28 February 2010 | |||||||||
Medalists | ||||||||||
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Canada | ||
United States | ||
Finland |
Team advances to Quarterfinals |
Team must play in Qualification playoffs |
The men's tournament in ice hockey at the 2010 Winter Olympics was held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, from 16 to 28 February 2010. Games were hosted at two venues – Canada Hockey Place (renamed from "General Motors Place" for the Olympics due to IOC rules disallowing host venues to be named after non-Olympic sponsors) and UBC Thunderbird Arena. It was the fourth time since the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano that the National Hockey League allowed its players to compete. These Olympics were the first to take place in a city with an NHL team since then, which meant players on the Vancouver Canucks who were competing in the Olympics were playing in their home arena.
Teams from twelve national hockey associations competed, seeded into three groups for the preliminary round. The tournament consisted of 30 games: 18 in the preliminary round (teams played the other teams in their own group); 4 qualification playoff games; 4 quarterfinal games; 2 semifinal games; 1 bronze medal game; and 1 gold medal game.
During the tournament, Teemu Selänne of Finland became the all-time leader for points scored in the Olympics. He notched an assist in his second game of the tournament for 37 career points, surpassing Valeri Kharlamov of the Soviet Union, Vlastimil Bubník of Czechoslovakia, and Harry Watson of Canada. Sweden's goaltender Henrik Lundqvist set a modern-day Olympic shutout streak record of 172 minutes and 34 seconds, continuous from the final of the gold medal game of the 2006 Olympics until Sweden's quarterfinal against Slovakia.