Athletes will play three 20-minute periods, with a 15-minute intermission in between. The Olympic ice surface is smaller than the NHL, measuring 197 feet long and 98.5 feet wide. Players are penalized for hooking, tripping and for being offside (a player is offside when his skates are completely over the leading edge of the blue line involved in the play). The IIHF enforces rules that restrict the use of performance-enhancing drugs. Players must submit to regular, in-competition and out-of-competition drug testing.
For more than 100 years, professional players from the National Hockey League (NHL) have been barred from participating in the Olympic tournament. In 1998, however, the Olympic Committee decided to allow NHL players to compete and since then teams have been able to field full-time NHL rosters for a portion of the Olympics.
Olympic ice hockey is played in a round-robin format with medals awarded based on total points earned throughout the tournament. The 1998 Games were the first time that women’s ice hockey was added to the Olympic program and since then three Canadian athletes (Jayna Hefford, Hayley Wickenheiser and Caroline Ouellette) have won four gold medals.
Until the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo, the Soviet Union had won every men’s Olympic ice hockey title. The “Miracle on Ice” that night remains one of the great moments in sports history.