Olympics Ice Hockey

Season Description
The men's tournament in ice hockey at the 2006 Winter Olympics was held in Turin, Italy, from 15 to 26 February. Twelve teams competed, with Sweden winning the gold medal, Finland winning silver, and the Czech Republic winning bronze. It was the third Olympic tournament to feature National Hockey League (NHL) players and the tenth best-on-best hockey tournament in history. United States defenseman Chris Chelios set a standard for longest time between his first Olympic ice hockey tournament and his last—he had competed twenty-two years earlier at the 1984 Olympics. The old record was set by Swiss hockey player Bibi Torriani. who had played twenty years after his debut (1928 and 1948).

The tournament format was changed from the 1998 and 2002 tournaments to a format similar to the 1992 and 1994 tournaments. The number of teams was reduced from 14 to 12, which were split into two groups in the preliminary stage (which followed a round robin format). Each team played the other teams in their group once. The top four teams from each group advanced to the quarter-finals.

The tournament is also notable for the lacklustre performance of defending champion Canada, which lost two group stage games (including a shock defeat to Switzerland) before being eliminated by Russia in the quarter-finals. There were allegations that Sweden intentionally lost their final group game against Slovakia to set up a quarterfinal against Switzerland.

In the semi-finals, Sweden defeated the Czech Republic 7–3, and Finland beat Russia 4–0. Sweden won its second ice hockey gold, and first in a best-on-best competition, over Finland 3–2 and the Czech Republic won the bronze medal. Three months later, Sweden won the 2006 World Championships and became the first team to win the Olympic and World Championship gold in the same year.

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