Ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...
was introduced to the
Olympic Games
The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...
at the
1920 Summer Olympics
The 1920 Summer Olympics (french: Jeux olympiques d'été de 1920; nl, Olympische Zomerspelen van 1920; german: Olympische Sommerspiele 1920), officially known as the Games of the VII Olympiad (french: Jeux de la VIIe olympiade; nl, Spelen van ...
in
Antwerp
Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504, .
The tournament also served as the first
World Championships
A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...
. The matches were played between April 23 and April 29, 1920.
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, represented by the
Winnipeg Falcons
The Winnipeg Falcons were a senior men's amateur ice hockey team based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The Winnipeg Falcons won the 1920 Allan Cup. That team went on to represent Canada in the Ice hockey at the 1920 Summer Olympics, 1920 Olympic games he ...
, won the gold medal.
The silver went to the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
and
Czechoslovakia
, rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי,
, common_name = Czechoslovakia
, life_span = 1918–19391945–1992
, p1 = Austria-Hungary
, image_p1 ...
took the bronze.
Summary
The organizing committee for the hockey matches included
Paul Loicq
Paul Loicq (11 August 1888 – 26 March 1953) was a Belgian lawyer, businessman and ice hockey player, coach, referee and administrator. He played ice hockey for Belgium men's national ice hockey team and won four bronze medals from in 1910 to 1 ...
, the captain of the Belgian team and a future president of the
Ligue Internationale de Hockey sur Glace (LIHG).
The games used the Canadian ice hockey rules, and the
Bergvall system to determine medal winning teams.
The
Canadian Amateur Hockey Association
The Canadian Amateur Hockey Association (CAHA; french: Association canadienne de hockey amateur) was the national governing body of amateur ice hockey in Canada from 1914 until 1994, when it merged with Hockey Canada. Its jurisdiction include ...
(CAHA) chose the
Winnipeg Falcons
The Winnipeg Falcons were a senior men's amateur ice hockey team based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The Winnipeg Falcons won the 1920 Allan Cup. That team went on to represent Canada in the Ice hockey at the 1920 Summer Olympics, 1920 Olympic games he ...
as the
1920 Allan Cup champions to represent the
Canada men's national team, instead of forming a national all-star team on short notice.
[Podnieks, Andrew; Hockey Hall of Fame (2005), pp. 28–29] Canada's manager
W. A. Hewitt
William Abraham Hewitt (May 15, 1875September 8, 1966) was a Canadian sports executive and journalist, also widely known as Billy Hewitt. He was secretary of the Ontario Hockey Association (OHA) from 1903 to 1966, and sports editor of the ''To ...
, introduced the CAHA rules of play to the LIHG at the Olympics. Writer
Andrew Podnieks described Hewitt's interpretation of the rules as "competitive yet gentlemanly", and that the rules of play were accepted for Olympic hockey. Hewitt refereed the first Olympic hockey game played, an 8–0 win by the
Sweden men's national team versus the
Belgium men's national team, on April 23, 1920.
All matches took place in the
Palais de Glace d'Anvers
The Palais de Glace d'Anvers (Ijspaleis Antwerpen) was a sports venue located in Antwerp, Belgium. Measuring long by wide, it hosted both the figure skating and ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice ska ...
(ice palace of Antwerp).
The
rink
Rink may refer to:
* Ice rink, a surface of ice used for ice skating
** Figure skating rink, an ice rink designed for figure skating
** Ice hockey rink, an ice rink designed for ice hockey
** Speed skating rink, an ice rink designed for speed ska ...
was smaller than North American standards, measuring long by wide. All games were played with seven players per side, with the
rover
Rover may refer to:
People
* Constance Rover (1910–2005), English historian
* Jolanda de Rover (born 1963), Dutch swimmer
* Rover Thomas (c. 1920–1998), Indigenous Australian artist
Places
* Rover, Arkansas, US
* Rover, Missouri, US
...
position being used. For the duration of each match no
substitutions were permitted and if a player exited the game due to injury the opposing team was forced to take a player out as well. Additional differences from modern play included a prohibition on
forward passing and the requirement that all players including the goaltender be standing on his skates to play the puck.
The duration of each game was two periods of twenty minutes each.
If any game had been tied at the end of the 40th minute, an additional two periods of five minutes each (ten minutes total) would have been added. And this process of adding two periods of five minutes each would have continued if the score were still tied at the end of any ten-minute addendum.
This was the first ice hockey tournament at an Olympic Games, and the only ever instance of it at a Summer Olympics.
An
ice hockey tournament was part of the
inaugural Winter Olympics in 1924 and has been part of every Winter program since then.
Medalists
Participating nations
A total of 60 ice hockey players from 7 nations competed at the Antwerp Games:
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Format
Seven nations entered teams in the inaugural Olympic ice hockey tournament. The tournament format used the
Bergvall system, starting with an
elimination round to determine the gold medal winner, after which teams that lost to the tournament winner would play through a new
bracket
A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. Typically deployed in symmetric pairs, an individual bracket may be identified as a 'left' or 'r ...
to determine silver. Finally, teams which lost to either the gold or silver winners would face off in a third bracket to determine the bronze winner. For the gold medal round, teams were drawn into the bracket with France receiving a
bye to the semifinals.
At the time of draw, the Swedish team questioned how the matchups for the later rounds would be determined and it was believed that teams advancing further in the earlier round would receive a bye.
However, no decision was made and when it came time for the silver medal round Sweden and the United States were selected to play a semifinal game while Czechoslovakia received the bye. Later for the bronze medal round, organizers wanted to ensure the tournament would conclude on schedule but were reluctant to force the Czechoslovakians to play twice in one day. As a result, the Swedish team were made to play another semifinal game which would be their fourth in as many days with the bronze medal game the following day. This led to criticism of the format despite
Bergvall later noting that the system was not used correctly.
Gold medal round (premier prix)
Bracket
Quarterfinals
Semifinals
Gold medal game
Silver medal round (second prix)
Bracket
Semifinal
Silver medal game
Bronze medal round (troisième prix)
Bracket
Semifinal
Bronze medal game
Statistics
Average age
Team France was the oldest team in the tournament, averaging 32 years and 11 months. Gold medalists team Canada was the youngest team in the tournament, averaging 24 years and 5 months. Tournament average was 26 years and 9 months.
Scoring leaders
Source
olympedia.org
/small>
Final ranking
References
Sources
*
*
*
*
External links
1920 Olympic Games report(digitized copy online)
International Olympic Committee results databaseIshockey VM OS 1920-1939Olympedia Olympic results database
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ice Hockey At The 1920 Summer Olympics
Olympics, Summer
1920 Summer Olympics events
1920
1920
Discontinued sports at the Summer Olympics
1924
April 1920 sports events