Better Know A Winter Olympics Sport: Men's Hockey, The Game That's Not For Amateurs

Ah, hockey. It certainly holds an odd place at the Winter Olympics, doesn't it? On the one hand, it's sort of like the forgotten stepchild of the American sports scene - thrown over there on that weird channel that's not ESPN, always second fiddle to those other sports. On the other hand, it's really the only ‘regular' sport at the Winter Games and the only one the average sports fan remotely knows anything about.

With that said, most Americans still have no clue who Ryan Miller and Ryan Whitney are, so in order to keep up with our Canadian brethren who have the inconvenience hono(u)r of hosting these Olympics, SB Nation brings you this preview of the 2010 Olympic men's ice hockey tournament.

FORMAT: The Olympics feature a round robin format, with group play happening in the first week of play. Each team will play three games in round robin play against the three other teams in their group.

GROUP A: United States, Canada, Norway, Switzerland

GROUP B: Czech Republic, Latvia, Russia, Slovakia

GROUP C: Belarus, Finland, Germany, Sweden

Each team advances past round robin play. Given their results, they are ranked one through twelve with the top four teams receiving byes to the quarter finals. The other eight teams will fight to the death for the remaining four quarter final spots. Then, it's already like you're in the Elite 8 of March Madness. See, hockey is fun.

WHEN: The Opening Ceremonies are on Friday the 12th and competition begins the next day. We have to wait until Tuesday to see the guys in action on the ice, however. There will be at three games per day from Tuesday, February 16th all the way through the first week. There's a day off on Monday the 22nd before the playoffs begin on Tuesday the 23rd.

The semifinal games are on the 26th, the bronze medal game is on the 27th, and the gold medal game is on the 28th. We'll have a detailed schedule (with television listings!) each morning of the tournament, telling you what to watch for and where you can see it each day right here at SB Nation.

WHERE: Hockey will take place at two buildings in the Vancouver area. The University of British Columbia's 6,800-capacity UBC Thunderbird Arena will host mens' ice hockey, as well as the much larger GM Place, home of the Vancouver Canucks. Corporate sponsorship is not allowed in the names of Olympic venues, so it has been renamed the BC Hockey Place for the tournament. Either way, it holds 19,300 for hockey and will be the site of every major game.

RULES: For the most part, the Olympic rules are pretty even with the NHL (at least on the mens' side of things). We hear a lot about how they play on an "Olympic size ice sheet" over in the European leagues, but with the Games taking place in Vancouver, it wasn't cost-effective to modify each building in order to make the ice larger.

Thus, the 2010 Games will be played on NHL-sized ice, which is four meters smaller in width than the typical Olympic-sized sheet. This could give an advantage to the North American teams who've grown up on that sized rink, but since most players in the tournament are accustomed to playing in the NHL anyway, it probably won't make much of a difference. Typically, the large ice sheet leads to wide-open skating and a game that lacks physicality, so an NHL-sized sheet should be most more like the NHL style that promotes physicality.

No-touch icing is in effect in the Olympics, which means that unlike the NHL, players don't have to race with the opponents to touch the puck at the other end before the whistle blows for icing. As soon as it crosses the goal line, the play stops.

Fighting is punished with an ejection from the game in Olympic hockey, unlike the five minute major penalty it receives in the NHL. There is no trapezoid behind the net, also, meaning goaltenders are free to explore and play the puck in the corners once again. Look for oppressed Canadian goalie Martin Brodeur to utilize this to his full extent.

WHO TO WATCH: All the stars will be out for the Games, as has been the case since the 1998 games in Nagano when the NHL allowed it's players to take part in the tournament. You have Alex Ovechkin on Team Russia, Sidney Crosby on Team Canada and Patrick Kane on Team USA to name a few. You know the stars, but this may be the last time you see them in the Olympics. The NHL is considering pulling their players out of the Games starting in 2014.

On a team level, don't expect Norway, Switzerland, Latvia, Germany or Belarus to compete for a medal. Yes, it's true that anything can happen in a short tournament and one of those teams could very well pull off a major upset. But it would be exactly that: a major upset.

Your favorites? Well, Canada has an absolutely stacked roster and they're the home country, so they have to be looked at as the favorite off the bat. After that, there's Russia who's very much on par with the Canadians. In fact, the Russians beat the Canadians in the World Championships two years ago in Canada, so they've proven they can win in that environment.

Defending gold-medalist Sweden, the Americans, Finland, and the Czechs will all likely be right there to compete for a medal as well. Slovakia might try to sneak in if they're lucky. Is it guaranteed that Canada and Russia medal? Hell no. The Olympics have proven time and time again that the best roster doesn't always win. They've also proven that we cannot by any means predict what's going to happen on that ice. Either way, those are your favorites on paper. You'll have to watch the Games to figure out the rest.