Olympic Primer

John Lebow
Feb 12, 2002

While it's true that the qualifying round has already begun, it is still not too late to help all of you prepare for the medal round. Along with the top ten players to watch in this Olympic tourney, I'm also going to go over a few little rule changes because... well, because I'm such a helpful person.

Everyone knows that the Olympic ice surface is bigger, and that there is no centre red line, which will have a lot of defensemen looking for long bomb breakout passes to streaking forwards 120 feet away, trying to get behind the defence and in alone on the goalie. What all of you may not know is that the International Ice Hockey Federation, the governing body of the Olympics, World, and World Junior championships, among others has a 'hurry-up' faceoff rule.

From the whistle at the end of the play, teams have ten seconds to make line changes, and another five seconds to get their faceoff alignments set up. After those fifteen seconds, ready or not, the puck will get dropped. In addition to the hurry up faceoff, there are also no television timeouts in Olympic competition. This really speeds the game up, and most of the games that have already been played have been clocked in at just over two hours and fifteen minutes, on average.

Another big factor in making the Olympic games quicker than those in the NHL is the no-touch icing rule. Icing is called automatically when the puck is dumped in from beyond centre. This gives the game more time in the attacking zones, and can give a team as much as 45 extra seconds that would otherwise be spent chasing the puck. Try telling a team down by one with 45 seconds left that the game is over.

You might be watching the Olympics and wondering... why did they blow the whistle on that, it looked like a regular bodycheck. If this happens, odds are you're watching women's hockey - the many ponytails are a dead giveaway.

The IIHF has a couple of other rules that are different from the NHL. The first is that when a goalie gets hit in the mask by a shot, the ref blows the play dead. Secondly, there is no playing without your helmet if it gets knocked off. The player either has to put it back on, or go to the bench.

All these changes are surely to affect the following ten individuals, who are the people to watch during this short tournament:

Mario Lemieux - The Team Canada captain will be playing in his first Olympics ever. That being said, he is expected to be as much of a force in Utah as he is in the NHL. However, he, and quite a few others need their best from...

Team Canada Medical Staff - Lemieux, Paul Kariya, Al MacInnis, Steve Yzerman, Owen Nolan, and Eric Lindros. No, that's not a list of players who will be counted on to shoulder the load, it's a list of players who have had injuries ranging from chronic back pain (Lemieux, Nolan) to a lacerated pinky (Kariya). The medical staff will have to be at the top of their game to ensure that the Canadians will be on top of theirs.

Tommy Salo/Johan Hedberg - Team Sweden comes in as a true medal contender every year, and most years it is because of guys like Salo, who can play every second of an Olympic tournament and give Sweden solid goaltending when they need it.

Mike Richter/Mike Dunham - Richter will be the American starting goalie, just like he was in the 1996 World Cup of hockey, when the Americans stunned the Canadians, and just like he was in Nagano, when the Americans were slightly disappointed with their finish (Insert your own Furniture Repair for Dummies joke here). While Richter should play every minute in Utah, with a guy like Dunham backing him up, it's not life or death to have Richter in net.

Mats Sundin - The Captain of the Maple Leafs, World All-Star team and Team Sweden leads the league in game-wining goals this year. Sundin and Markus Naslund, both in the top five in NHL scoring will be looked upon heavily to make up for the loss of Peter Forsberg.

The Finnish Defence corps - Teppo Numminen will lead a talented blue line crew that includes Janne Niinimaa and Leaf defence partners Aki Berg and Jyrki Lumme. The blueline will have to play their best error-free hockey in front of starter Jani Hurme if Finland wants a repeat of 1998, where the team won bronze.

Teemu Selanne/Sami Kapanen - The two finnish forwads will be looked to handle the bulk of the scoring on a roster that is devoid of start, aside from these two and Jere Lehtinen.

Robert Reichel - Reichel may not necessarily be a true player to watch, but he was the only one to put a puck past Patrick Roy in the 1998 semi-final game against Canada. He will definitely be selected for another shootout, if the need arises.

Darius Kasparitis/Danny Markov - These two may not necessarily put up a lot of points, but on a very skilled Russian team, they don't have to. What they do need to do is play their game and hit hard in their own end to make up for Dimirty Yushkevitch's absence due to a blood clot. Vladimir Malakhov used to be counted on do to the same thing, but he is a bit more cautious because of his knees, which cause him trouble at times.

Nikolai Khabibulin/Dominik Hasek - If Russia plays the Czech Republic, I would not be surprised if they needed three rounds of a shootout before anyone scored on these guys. Hasek is as dogged as ever to hang on to his best goalie in the world title, while Khabibulin wants to prove to everyone that he is the premier puck-stopper in the world.

All of these players are looking for gold, and most actually have a chance of getting themselves to the gold medal game. Even for those that don't look like they can make it, this is a very short tournament, and it's possible to ride a hot goalie, or hot line to a gold medal. All of the players mentioned have the ability to carry teams on their backs, and some may have to... luckily, I'm stocked up on beer and corn chips, so I'm not missing a second.

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