By Michael Tyler
Amidst the current brouhaha of the changing world order, the nations of the world — or at least the ones far enough from the equator to get snow and ice — are gathering in Northern Italy to compete for winter glory. This year’s Winter Olympics feature many wonderful sports and competitions, perhaps none more exciting than the men’s ice hockey tournament. For the first time since 2014, (non-Russian) National Hockey League (NHL) players will finally make their return to compete for the sport’s most sought-after gold medal.
If, like me, you’re looking for a distraction from humanity’s Second Cold War circling the drain of becoming its Third World War, look no further than the International Ice Hockey Federation’s ten-day extravaganza. Though my hometown Colorado Avalanche have delivered to me three Stanley Cups in my lifetime, Team USA has left me only with a Disney movie and a couple of silver medal losses. And in these uncertain times, couldn’t we all use a good reason to be proud to be an American? This Olympic tournament is surely hockey’s most anticipated best-on-best competition in a generation, despite the Russian Federation’s exclusion for acting too much like an imperial power.
The tournament was previewed last year in the NHL-sponsored Four Nations Faceoff, which replaced the league’s usual All-Star game with exhibitions between international powerhouses the United States, Canada, Sweden, and Finland. In contrast to the game it was replacing, Four Nations was no breezy affair; players from the United States and Canada dropped the gloves and brawled like one of their daddies told the other that he was going to make their country the 51st state.
In the last year, geopolitical tensions between the North American neighbors have cooled…and been brought right back to the boiling point, just in time for the world’s most talented hockey players to don their national colors and compete for international glory. Unlike last year’s All-Star Game substitution, International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) rules don’t allow for fighting, so one of the major storylines will surely be if the Americans give a flying puck about international norms.
