NHL
2026 Olympic
Hockey
A format similar to the women's side would make for a stronger men's tournament overall, with more competitive games played and fewer predictable blowouts. Bruce Bennett / Getty Images
Canada’s gold medal win at the Sochi Olympics feels like a lifetime ago.
How many people recall, for example, that Teemu Selanne, at 43 years old, was that tournament’s MVP? Or that Phil Kessel led the event in scoring? Or how about tiny Slovenia making the quarterfinals? And Finland thumping Team USA 5-0 to win the bronze?
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My point is, we’ve been waiting a long, long time for these best-on-best Games, so long that we old fogies have somewhat foggy memories from the last time around. Twelve years is such an eternity that generational stars such as Connor McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon are into the back nine of their careers, at 30 and 29 years old, and only now getting their first chance on this stage. And many other great players missed out entirely.
So, naturally, we’re all excited for this level of hockey to finally return to the Olympics. But can we be honest about something?
The format for these games isn’t great. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s awful.
For those who need a refresher, the men’s Olympic hockey tournament involves 12 countries divided into three groups. Teams play three games against all of the clubs in their group, and the top four teams from all of those games earn a bye to the quarterfinals. The remaining eight teams play a do-or-die qualification playoff game, with the winners moving on to face the four teams already waiting for the quarterfinals.
On paper, it all seems fine. The round-robin winners get rewarded with a bye; the losers have to play an extra elimination game to stay.
In practice, however, one of the significant issues is that there isn’t much depth to this field. Which means that after 12 years of waiting for best-on-best action, we’re instead getting a Canadian roster loaded with some of the best NHL players ever playing 14th-ranked France, a team with one lone NHL player. (Best of luck to Alexandre Texier.) It’s a game where Team Canada has a 99 percent chance of winning, and where the expected score is a heavy blowout.
The United States, the tournament co-favorites, are in a group with Germany, Latvia and Denmark, three hockey minnows with rosters made up largely of non-NHL pros in various lower-level European leagues. All of Team USA’s round-robin games are projected to be heavily lopsided, which gives the Americans an overwhelming 92 percent chance of a bye to the quarterfinals.
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You mix in home side Italy — without a single NHL player and with a 70 percent chance of finishing last or second-to-last — in the other group, and the result is a high percentage of games (more than 60 percent, by my math) throughout the tournament that aren’t going to be very competitive.
What's worse about all of this is what we don't get. Canada isn't guaranteed to play the U.S. at these Olympics. Or Sweden or Finland. In fact, there's only one meeting between the top four hockey countries in the preliminary round — Sweden versus Finland on Friday — and without an unexpected upset, they're all unlikely to face one another after that until at least the semifinals on one of the final days of the Olympics.
That's partly because things don't necessarily improve in the playoff rounds. After Canada likely earns a bye to the quarterfinals, its most likely opponent for its first playoff game will be ... Switzerland. Again.
The U.S., meanwhile, will take a two-day break after (presumably) winning its underwhelming group and then have a decent chance of facing Germany (again) or another small nation with few NHL players for the right to move into the final four.
If somehow there's an upset in one of those quarterfinal games, it very well could mean we're denied a meeting between these big four countries entirely.
Now, that's not to say I'd advocate for a tiny Olympic tournament along the lines of the 4 Nations Face-Off. That wouldn't really be in the participatory spirit of the Games. But a tweak to the format to ensure there really is more best-on-best play — and not just superpowers beating up on smaller hockey nations that only have a few NHL players — makes a lot of sense.
What's interesting is that the women's side made a major change along those lines starting with the Sochi Games in 2014. Because of how overmatched some teams were at the 2010 Olympics, especially against Canada and the U.S., the groupings were revised for the next world championships so that the top teams were all together for the round robin.
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So, for example, at this year's Games, the five clubs in Group A on the women's side are playing for the right to get a better seeding in the quarterfinals. The five lower-ranked nations play in a secondary group from which only three teams advance to the playoff rounds.
That's why Canada and the U.S. faced off on Tuesday in the most highly anticipated non-medal-round game on either side, a 5-0 win by the Americans that sets the stage for a likely rematch in the gold medal game next week. That could make for great theater with Canada seeking redemption, an example of the type of storyline that won't happen in the men's event.
What could a similar format look like on the men's side?
Based on the current world rankings, Group A would plausibly consist of Canada, the United States, Sweden, the Czech Republic and Switzerland. Group B would then have Finland, Germany, Denmark, Slovakia and Italy. Both sides would play all four games against the other countries in their group, determining the No. 1 through No. 5 seeding, and the top three teams in Group B would be ranked sixth, seventh and eighth for the quarterfinals. (If you wanted to still include Latvia and France for a 12-team tournament, the way the Olympics have this year, you could bump Finland into Group A and revise the round robin and playoff formats slightly.)
Even with Finland in Group B, this would mean far more games between the best teams in the event. And the best of the minnows would still get a shot at Canada or the U.S. in a high-profile playoff game every four years, ensuring they're not cut out of those high-profile games entirely.
To me, that would make for a stronger tournament overall, with more competitive games played and fewer predictable blowouts. It would also ensure we see the U.S., Sweden and Canada all face one another every four years — and sometimes more than once in a single event.
If there's a downside to the women's format, it's that the Group A teams are all guaranteed a quarterfinal berth coming in, siloing them off from the other side. But the reality right now with the men's format is that's basically the case anyway, often with only a qualification game against an Italy or France standing in the way of moving on, even if you don't fare well in your round-robin games.
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One key added benefit of this new format on the men's side? Those quarterfinal seedings battles would give the early tournament games some real stakes. Win a lot of those preliminary games against good teams and you're facing a team such as Denmark for a berth in the semifinals. Lose, and you could get Finland in a must-win game.
That's a significant improvement over the current setup, where we're left hoping for an unlikely upset to introduce some drama prior to the event's final few games.
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James Mirtle is a senior writer covering the NHL for The Athletic. James joined The Athletic as the inaugural editor in Canada in 2016 and served as senior managing editor of The Athletic NHL for four years. Previously, he spent 12 years as a sportswriter with The Globe and Mail. A native of Kamloops, B.C., he appears regularly on Sportsnet 590 The Fan and other radio stations across Canada. Follow James on Twitter @mirtle
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