Olympic hockey is great, but can it be even better? We consider changes to overtime, tournament formats, the time of the final, and the neutrality of officiating.
Over the past two weeks – and in particular over the past few days as the men’s and women’s Olympic tournaments have reached their climaxes – we’ve seen some amazing hockey. Wednesday and Thursday saw three men’s quarterfinals and both women’s medal games settled in overtime. Then on Friday, a game between two men’s powerhouses was decided in the final minute of regulation time.
That hasn’t stopped fans and media from complaining, of course, but they’re allowed. Just because something is good doesn’t mean it can’t be even better. With that in mind, I’ve thought about some of the things that I’ve seen the most complaints about over the past few days and pondered about ways to improve them. They include the overtime format, the men’s tournament format, the date and time of the men’s final, and neutral officiating.
Overtime format
Five out of six knockout games on Wednesday and Thursday were decided in overtime. That was pretty exciting, but it didn’t stop fans from complaining that the teams skated 3-on-3 at even strength. Fans of the NHL, of course, are used to playoff games being played at 5-on-5, but they’re also used to games sometimes needing multiple extra periods to decide a winner. That’s something that’s just not feasible in international tournaments.
When you have multiple games in one day on the same rink, they simply must end in a timely manner. If a game runs much longer than three hours, it risks pushing back the faceoff time of the next one. Since the introduction of knockout playoff games starting in 1992, the IIHF has decided most tied games with a 10-minute sudden-death period, which was followed by a shootout if an overtime goal wasn’t scored. As some of you might remember, shootouts were rather common when they used to play 5-on-5.
Over the years, the IIHF has decided that it would rather see games decided in overtime than a shootout, and has reduced player strength to 4-on-4 and finally 3-on-3. This strategy has worked, as we rarely see shootouts in knockout games anymore.
Some have suggested that a return to at least 4-on-4 would be better without risking games running too long, but I’m not so sure about that. I remember the 2017 IIHF World Championship final between Sweden and Canada, which saw a full 20-minute 4-on-4 overtime period followed by an eight-round shootout. The game ended at 11:47 PM local time in Germany and there were concerns about broadcasters from various countries abandoning the game.
Playing 3-on-3 might not be perfect, but the overtime goals scored by Mitch Marner, Artturi Lehkonen, Quinn Hughes, Alina Müller and Megan Keller were still great hockey plays that we wouldn’t have seen if those games had gone to shootouts.
Tournament format
Before the NHL began freeing its players to compete, the 12-team men’s Olympic tournament was divided into two groups and spanned the full length of the Games, starting on the opening Saturday and finishing on the closing Sunday. Between 1998 and 2010, a few different formats were experimented with, and they’ve finally settled on a 12-day window in which teams play a maximum of seven games.
The current format remains at 12 teams but they’re divided into three groups to shorten the preliminary stage, from which all teams advance. The odd number of groups results in an overall seeding process which can be heavily skewed by a single upset and can see frequent repeat matchups in the knockout stage between teams from the same group.
If the requirements from the IOC, IIHF and NHL dictate that it must be 12 teams playing no more than seven games each over a 12-day span, there might not be a better option. Perhaps they could eliminate the groups altogether, like the UEFA Champions League or Champions Hockey League, and conduct a draw where each team plays four opponents in the preliminary stage. The top eight teams would then advance to the quarterfinals. If they could reduce it to 10 teams, they could have two five-team groups, like the women’s tournament. These would not be tiered groups, like this year’s women’s tournament had, but balanced groups, like the women will have moving forward.
Day and time of the men’s final
When the men’s tournament spanned 16 days, finishing on the final Sunday was rather necessary. I can recall early-morning wake-ups to watch the 1992 final between Canada and the Unified Team in France and the 1994 final between Canada and Sweden in Norway.
Since then, the tournament has started later but the men’s final has remained on Sunday afternoon – the final event before the closing ceremonies. Czechs tell stories of waking up early in the morning in 1998 to watch the final against Russia, which was played in Nagano, Japan and faced off at 5:45 AM Central European Time. Canadians woke up between 3:00 and 7:30 in the morning to watch the 2014 final against Sweden, which was played in Sochi.
From the multiple discussions on social media, it seems to be important for some people that the men’s final remains on the final day, as a spotlight event of the Winter Olympics. Others, however, would like to see a change. A lot of the noise is coming from Americans, who are used to their television networks being able to dictate the start times of domestic sporting events, and some expected that they might be able to do it for this year’s final. They won’t. Americans have been fortunate in that the two most recent times their team has reached the men’s final – in 2002 in Salt Lake City and 2010 in Vancouver – the games started at times convenient to North American viewers. This time, it will start at 8:00 AM Eastern Time and 5:00 AM on the west coast.
Since Europe and North America together probably combine for more than 99 percent of the world’s hockey fans, and definitely contain every country with a realistic chance of making the final, it shouldn’t be difficult to find a time that works for both, should it? A game that starts at 20:00 CET and 2:00 PM ET works for almost everybody concerned, doesn’t it? Of course, if the Olympics are in Europe, the final would have to be played on Saturday. Is that a problem? Couldn’t the men’s tournament start on Tuesday instead of Wednesday?
That solution doesn’t work if the Games are held in Asia, but the next two Winter Olympics are scheduled for the Alpine region of France and Salt Lake City, Utah. We can cross that bridge when we come to it.
Neutral officiating
One of the biggest issues to come to light following Canada’s 3-2 victory over Finland in the men’s semifinal game on Friday was the fact that both referees – Eric Furlatt and Dan O’Rourke – are from Canada. Numerous fans from Finland, including a prominent former NHLer, questioned a late high-sticking call against Niko Mikkola on Nathan McKinnon, leading to McKinnon’s game-winning power-play goal with 36 seconds remaining.
As a former referee, I am certain that Furlatt and O’Rourke did not officiate the game with the intention of aiding the Canadian team. Think about it. If you had your dream job – which these guys have – would you risk your professional reputation to help your favorite team win a sporting event? But perception is important, and having two referees from the country of one of the competing teams in a big game isn’t good optics.
Having all on-ice officials from a neutral country used to be standard in IIHF play, but the beginning of NHL players at the 1998 Olympics, and the requirement of NHL officials in games with a certain number of NHL players, necessitated using NHL officials – who at the time were all from Canada or the USA – working games involving those countries.
This year, a hybrid system was introduced where IIHF and NHL officials have worked together. As a result, before Friday’s semifinals, only one Canadian referee worked a Canadian men’s game and only one American worked a USA game. That doesn’t include Kyle Rehman, who was born and raised in Alberta but now lives in Arizona and has had a U.S. flag beside his name throughout these Olympics. He’s worked once for each team.
There was a time when North Americans generally considered European referees to be substandard, but that has lessened over the years, and it might be time to once again always have games officiated by neutral referees, even in the Olympics.
On the women’s side, the issue might be even more complicated. There have been accusations of impartiality against Canadians and Americans on Canada-USA games, and also concerns about European officials being in over their heads on the same matchup. I’m not sure if there’s a simple solution to this.
