The 2026 Olympic men's hockey tournament featured thrilling games, unexpected upsets and dominant performances that captivated fans. No matter which country you were pulling for to win gold, you had to be a fan of the caliber of the games we saw.
The 2026 Winter Olympics began with extremely high expectations, particularly for the men's hockey event featuring most of the top players on planet Earth.
And after Sunday's thrilling gold medal final between the victorious United States and the silver-medal-winning Canadian team, we have to borrow a line from the iconic movie Gladiator: are you not entertained?
For real, though – these Olympics were phenomenal, and although we had to wait 12 years for NHL participation to return, it added a whole other level to this memorable tournament.
Sure, your favorite team may not have won gold, but from the preliminary round through the medal-round games, there was never any game where you sat back and criticized it for not being high-stakes enough for you.
We had upsets – including the very first game on Feb. 11 when the underdog Team Slovakia got the best of Team Finland 4-1. And the Finns got their revenge on the Slovaks 10 days later in the bronze medal game.
And who can forget Team Italy scoring first on Team Sweden and tying the game at 2-2 in the second period of their first round-robin games? Or Latvia shocking Germany, and Denmark shocking Latvia?
The overtime-filled quarterfinals were another treat to watch, with Finland, Canada and the United States escaping upset losses.
And you had some non-NHL players who played very well, including Slovakian AHL goalie Samuel Hlavaj, someone who has yet to play an NHL game but had a solid Olympics. And 30-year-old forward Nick Olesen scored four goals and five points to lead Team Denmark in scoring, with two more points than Nikolaj Ehlers.
But it wasn't only a couple of drama-filled games and little-known players that made these Olympics so great.
While it was nice that some non-powerhouse teams got a moment in the sun at one point or another, it was fitting that the two best teams on paper were the final two teams standing for Sunday's gold medal game.
The Canadian and American fans and management had massive expectations for their team. If only one of these teams made it to the gold medal game and won, there would be endless questions about what would have happened had the other team made it.
And while Canada's Olympic gold medal dream ended in an overtime nightmare, the Americans' dream came true in a beautiful way.
But you cannot accuse either team (or any team) of playing it too safe, or of too many after-the-whistle shenanigans that the NHL tolerates far more than the Olympics do.
No, this was straight-ahead great hockey in its highest form – swift, slick and skilled to an astonishing degree. Yes, the on-ice officials missed some key calls here or there, but the best teams inevitably won. And if you were a casual fan of the sport coming into the Olympics, you're coming out of it wanting to see more of this kind of game.
Sunday's gold medal final was on an entertainment par with last year's 4 Nations Face-Off, only the games that led into the final had buy-in from countries that were not necessarily hockey-rich the way the Americans, Canadians and Scandinavian-country teams are. You had the lure of potential upsets in the Olympics, but in the end, you had the two teams that deserved to be in the final actually making it to the final. And the gold medal game was essentially a toss-up that needed extra time to be decided.
It's hard to imagine how the Olympics could've played out any better. The NHL jacked up the quality of play by allowing its players to participate, and the players – NHL and non-NHL players – delivered an entertainment product that will be talked about for many years to come.
And we cannot discuss how memorable the 2026 Olympic hockey was without mentioning the women's tournament.
The women's side featured arguably the best U.S. women's team ever putting in a convincing campaign in Hilary Knight's final Olympics, Marie-Philip Poulin setting an Olympic women's hockey goal-scoring record for Canada, Sweden resurging and Switzerland winning bronze in overtime.
The Olympics puts more focus on your sport than any Stanley Cup playoff game would, and the 2026 edition in Milan will be remembered fondly because hockey's elite players came through in the spotlight and captivated the sports world.
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