1998 Winter Olympics – Men's tournament

The men's ice hockey tournament at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, was the 19th Olympic Championship. The Czech Republic, which emerged from the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993, won its first gold medal, becoming only the seventh nation to ever win Olympic ice hockey gold. The tournament, held from February 7 to February 22, was played at the Big Hat and Aqua Wing arenas.

This was the first Olympics in which the National Hockey League (NHL) took a break allowing national teams to be constructed using the best possible talent from each country. The 1998 Olympic tournament therefore came to be known as the "Tournament of the Century". Unlike previous Olympics where athletes could choose five-star hotel accommodations (such as the USA Men's Basketball team), NHL players were required to stay in the Olympic Village like other athletes.

Both Canada and the United States were heavily favoured; they had previously faced off in the final of the 1996 World Cup of Hockey. After a below-expectations performance in the tournament which included only one win, however, several American players trashed their rooms in the Olympic Village. Although the Americans quickly paid for the damage, they never apologized. The Canadian team, despite a strong start in the round robin, failed to play well after losing their semifinal match against the Czech Republic, and played a lackluster bronze medal game, disappointing Canadians who wished for Wayne Gretzky to get an Olympic medal. Nonetheless, Gretzky encouraged all of his teammates to attend the closing ceremony.

With political struggles and problems within the Russian hockey program at the time, Russia was missing most of its top NHL stars that refused to participate for political or personal reasons, and were not expected to medal. Among the missing were Nikolai Khabibulin, Alexander Mogilny, Igor Larionov, Viacheslav Fetisov, Vyacheslav Kozlov, Oleg Tverdovsky, Vladimir Malakhov and Sergei Zubov. Alexei Kovalev missed the tournament due to injury where he was replaced by Sergei Fedorov, who called the president of the Russian Ice Hockey Federation and offered to be a substitute, who had not played in nearly a year and was currently in a holdout with the Detroit Red Wings.

In large part due to the goaltending of Dominik Hašek, who was considered the best goaltender throughout Olympic play as well as the NHL, the Czech Republic shut-out Russia to win the gold medal.

The format of the men's tournament was criticized because the National Hockey League (NHL) clubs would not release their players for the preliminary round. This severely hampered the campaigns of Germany and Slovakia, both of whom failed to qualify for the final group stage. Also the final group stage was criticized as being meaningless since all of the teams qualified for the quarter-finals. The format was eventually changed for the 2006 tournament in an effort to address these criticisms.

Qualification
Fourteen nations would qualify for the Olympic tournament, eight to the preliminary round, and six to the first round. The IIHF used the standings of the 1995 Men's World Ice Hockey Championships to determine qualification. First, the top six nations from Pool A would go directly to the first round. The preliminary round was made up of the nations ranked seventh and eighth, along with the host Japan, and five others from a series of qualification tournaments. The nations ranked nine through twelve went straight to the final qualification round.

Regional Pre-Qualification
Five nations played each other twice, both home and away, from October 25, 1995, until December 12, 1996.
 * Group A

This tournament was played in Tychy, Poland, from December 17 to 22, 1996.
 * Group B
 * Note: In January 1996 Greece beat Israel 10-2, but forfeited the result because of an ineligible player. Following that, in March of the same year Israel played Yugoslavia, in Lithuania, losing 5-3.  Israel's loss is officially a 5-0 loss, the match was declared forfeit because they used ineligible players from Russia.

This tournament was played in Riga, Latvia, from August 27 to September 1, 1996.
 * Group C
 * Note: In January 1996 Hungary played a challenge series against Croatia winning 7-0 and 6-0.

The Asian Winter Games were used as a qualifying tournament, and were played in Harbin, China, from February 5 to 8, 1996. Japan participated though already qualified for the Olympics.
 * Group D

Final Olympic Qualification
The top two from each group qualify, the two third placed nations play for the final spot. Played in Oberhausen, Germany, from February 6 to 9, 1997.
 * Group 1

Played in Innsbruck, Austria, from February 6 to 9, 1997.
 * Group 2

'' secures the final spot in the Preliminary Round.

Group A
Top team (shaded) advanced to the first round. All times are local (UTC+9).

Group B
Top team (shaded) advanced to the first round. All times are local (UTC+9).

13th place match
All times are local (UTC+9).

11th place match
All times are local (UTC+9).

9th place match
All times are local (UTC+9).

Group C
All times are local (UTC+9).

Group D
All times are local (UTC+9).

Quarter-finals
All times are local (UTC+9).

Semi-finals
All times are local (UTC+9).

Bronze medal game
All times are local (UTC+9).

Gold medal game
All times are local (UTC+9).

Roster notes
Several of general manager Bobby Clarke's selections for Team Canada were controversial. Eric Lindros was named captain over longtime leaders such as Wayne Gretzky, Steve Yzerman, and Ray Bourque (Clarke at the time was general manager of Lindros's NHL team, the Philadelphia Flyers). Rob Zamuner was a surprise pick, while Mark Messier and Scott Niedermayer were omitted.

Memorably, during the shootout in their semifinal match against the Czech Republic, Canadian coach Marc Crawford opted to have defenceman Ray Bourque shoot in the shootout instead of high-scoring forwards Wayne Gretzky and Steve Yzerman. Hockey commentators alternatively criticized Crawford's decision (Bourque, like the other four Canadian shooters, failed to score) and praised it on the grounds that Bourque was one of hockey's most accurate shooters at the time and Gretzky had always been surprisingly mediocre on breakaways.

Japanese fans were disappointed when their adopted hero, Paul Kariya, a Canadian of Japanese heritage and one of Canada's best stars, failed to make the Games due to a crosscheck by Gary Suter during regular season NHL play.