Olympics Ice Hockey

Season Description
Qualification for the men's ice hockey tournament at the 2026 Winter Olympics was determined by the IIHF World Ranking following the 2023 Men's Ice Hockey World Championships. A total of 12 men's hockey teams qualified. The hosts (Italy) along with the top eight teams in the world ranking received automatic berths into the Olympics, while all other teams had an opportunity to qualify for the remaining three spots.

Olympic qualification Round 3: Twelve countries played in three tournaments to determine qualifiers for the next round. Each tournament winner was ranked by their qualification seeding and entered the next round as qualifier four, five, or six. The tournaments were played between 8 and 11 February 2024.

Final Olympic qualification: Twelve countries played in three tournaments to determine the qualifying teams for the Olympic tournament. The tournaments were played between 29 August and 1 September 2024. On February 12, 2024, the IIHF announced that Belarus was disqualified from Olympic qualification forcing the redrawing of the final round and admitting the best second place finisher from the previous round, Hungary.

Russia was likewise not allowed to participate in the Olympic tournament, so France will took its place as the best-ranked second place team from the earlier round.

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