It’s the Whole Even-Odd Thing,
If You Know What I Mean
I am excited about the 2026 Winter Olympics so far. We will see USA and Canada battle it out for the gold medal in the Women’s tournament. And for the first time in a long time, we may see a USA-Canada showdown in the men’s tournament, too.
This is the first time in 12 years that the NHL shut down two weeks to allow its players to participate in the Olympics. This is the first Olympics that headlined Auston Matthews for Team USA and Connor McDavid for Team Canada.
But as awesome as having Olympic rosters stuffed with top-level NHL talent, the men’s ice hockey tournament at the Olympics isn’t always great…for North American fans, anyway.
In fact, men’s Olympic ice hockey reminds me of the old Star Trek movies from the 1980s and 1990s, where the odd-numbered films were bad, while the even-numbered films were great. The same pattern applies to men’s Olympic ice hockey since 1998.
Continue reading “Olympic Ice Hockey is Like Star Trek Movies”
