Ice Hockey
Hockey is Canada's national winter sport, and Canadians are extremely passionate about the game. The nation has traditionally done very well at the Olympic games, winning 6 of the first 7 gold medals. However, by 1956 its amateur club teams and national teams could not compete with the teams of government-supported players from the Soviet Union. When Canada's best players (from the National Hockey League) were able to compete starting in 1998, expectations were high for the country's return to glory, but the Czech Republic won gold and the team fell to Finland in the bronze medal game. Canada finally won its first hockey gold in 50 years in Salt Lake City in 2002, sparking national celebrations. The women's team also won gold in 2002, after winning only silver in the first women's Olympic competition in Nagano. The women repeated as champions in 2006.
The 2010 games are the first Olympics to take place in an NHL market since the league's players started to compete in the games, as Vancouver is home to the Canucks.
See also: Canadian national men's hockey team and Canadian national women's hockey team| Games | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1920 AntwerpN | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 1924 Chamonix | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 1928 St. Moritz | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 1932 Lake Placid | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 1936 Garmisch-Partenkirchen | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 1948 St. Moritz | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 1952 Oslo | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 1956 Cortina d'Ampezzo | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 1960 Squaw Valley | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 1968 Grenoble | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 1992 Albertville | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 1994 Lillehammer | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 1998 Nagano | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2002 Salt Lake City | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| 2006 Turin | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 2010 Vancouver | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Total | 11 | 5 | 2 | 18 |
Note: Ice hockey was part of the Summer Olympic program for the 1920 games in Antwerp, but is listed here for completeness.
Read more about this topic: Canada At The Winter Olympics
Famous quotes containing the word ice:
“Every incident connected with the breaking up of the rivers and ponds and the settling of the weather is particularly interesting to us who live in a climate of so great extremes. When the warmer days come, they who dwell near the river hear the ice crack at night with a startling whoop as loud as artillery, as if its icy fetters were rent from end to end, and within a few days see it rapidly going out. So the alligator comes out of the mud with quakings of the earth.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)