NHL players return to Winter Olympics for first time since 2014

One of the showcase events at the Winter Olympics will be hockey, where NHL players are backfor the first time since 2014 and the world's best women's players are competing in the Games for an eighth consecutive time. What's known: The main arena will have ice that's smaller than what the speedy, hard-hitting NHL players are used to. What's not known: Whether the rink will be fully built with a safe ice surface — seating should be fine — by the time play begins. Assuming that all gets settled, the competition should be remarkable, with star players like Sidney Crosby and Hilary Knight going for Olympic gold. How it worksEach of the 12 teams on the men's side and 10 for the women have rosters of 22 skaters and three goaltenders, dressing 20 and two and playing 5 on 5 in regulation and 3 on 3 in overtime. The games will be familiar to NHL and PWHL fans: 60 minutes of regulation, divided into three periods, with no ties. If there is not a goal in overtime, shootouts — skater vs. goaltender for five rounds — are used to determine the result until the gold medal game, when play continues with sudden-death 20-minute periods until one team scores. Group play sets the matchups for elimination games. Who to watchThe North American teams are considered the ones to beat for both men and women. It is expected to be Knight's fifth and final Games as she and Kendall Coyne Schofield give way to the next generation of American talent led by Laila Edwards. Canada captain Marie-Philip Poulin is set to play in her sixth Olympics and is looking for a fourth gold medal. The Canadians gave up 10 goals — for the first time in national team history — to the U.S. in an exhibition game in December. Finland is the defending champion on the men's side after winning its first Olympic title in 2022 when pandemic-related scheduling issues caused the NHL to pull out. Canada won in 2014 and 2010, the last two times the world's best men's players participated, with Crosby this time joining forces with Connor McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon. As with all team sports, Russia is barred from hockey at the Olympics because of the war in Ukraine. That sidelines many of the best players in the world, including NHL career goals record holder Alex Ovechkin and two-time Stanley Cup champions Andrei Vasilevskiy and Nikita Kucherov. Venues and datesThe men's tournament is scheduled to run from Feb. 11-22. The women start Feb. 5, the day before the opening ceremony, with the final on Feb. 19. Games are set to be held in Milan at the Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena, a new, 16,000-seat venue, and a smaller rink in Rho. Memorable momentsCrosby's "golden goal" to give Canada an overtime victory in the final in 2010 in Vancouver is etched in hockey lore. So is T.J. Oshie's shootout success for the U.S. against host Russia in Sochi in '14. Poulin had her own OT heroics that year, as Canada tied it late after the U.S. hit the post of an empty net, which would have sealed gold. Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson and the Americans returned the favor in 2018, beating their archrivals in a shootout in the final. Fun factsMen's hockey has been a fixture since the first Winter Games in 1924 and actually debuted at the 1920 Summer Games in Antwerp. Canada has won gold nine times (including Antwerp), the most by far (the Soviet Union won seven times), with Sweden and the U.S each winning twice. The American men haven't won since the 1980 "Miracle On Ice" in Lake Placid. The women's competition was added at Nagano in 1998; either the U.S. or Canada has won every Olympic title since and the fierce rivals have met in the final six out of seven times.