Why the men's Olympic hockey tournament fell short

Losing Canada in the United States hurt, but the men's hockey competition at the 2022 Beijing Olympics is suffering for no shortage of reasons.

Video Transcript

JUSTIN CUTHBERT: One piece of business to take care of on the Olympics front. The ROC, throw up the rock, survived Sweden to make it back to the Olympic final. Of course, they won it in Pyeongchang four years ago. And they will meet Finland in the men's final. The gold medal game after the Suomi beat Slovakia in the other semi-final.

So we have that to look forward to. Unless you're like me and you're having a difficult time getting up for this competition. And maybe that's convenient, right? Canada and the USA out. Certainly, it would be a little bit different if one of those teams or nations was still in.

But the quality of hockey without the NHL, and compared to what the women displayed earlier in the week, it just isn't close. Like, the men's tournament so far has been a contest in parking the bus.

For the Finns, who are in the gold medal final, that sort of comes naturally, right? Like, they're always structured. That's their strength. And, to a man, they're all defensive aces, or at least it seems.

But watching the ROC and Sweden and the ultra-conservativeness from them in the moment in that semi-final, when it looked like Sweden was just trying to get that one goal, or preserve a one-goal disadvantage, get that one goal to get back into it, and then basically put on a coin flip.

And the ROC, who, despite being more talented, sacked guys like Nikita Gusev for long stretches, not going for it themselves.

Even the designs of the roster. I mean, Sweden left a bunch of guys at home that would be considered more potent offensive players. So it's both deliberate and in the moment, you know, conservative. And when all that comes together, it's just not eye-pleasing hockey. It's actually really, really disappointing what this men's tournament has turned into.

And, as I mentioned, go to overtime. 10 minutes of three-on-three, and there was nothing of consequence. As I mentioned, Nikita Gusev sitting on the bench until the shootout, which both teams apparently wanted to get to.

It should be, like, the pinnacle of hockey, the Olympics. Best-on-best, that's what it should be. Nations-- tons of nations that are great at hockey going head-to-head. But, you know, all of the steam of this tournament has been removed. And we have a final that's decent on paper but isn't that exciting.

I will say, go Finland. At least they're doing what they normally do, instead of reducing themselves to something that there aren't. Russia and Sweden are better than trying to go to a shootout to decide an Olympics semi-final.