🇨🇭 Switzerland 5-4 United States 🇺🇸
Olympic Final Round
Olympiastadion St. Moritz, St. Moritz 🇨🇭
Friday, 30 January 1948

The 1948 Olympics was supposed to be a celebration of sport during a time of peace.

The Olympics of 1940 and 1944 were both cancelled because of the Second World War, but even before the 1948 Olympics got underway there was another war erupting – a hockey war – that threatened the inclusion of hockey at the first post-war Games.

The conflict heated up 30 December 1947 and involved two American hockey bodies – the American Hockey Association (AHA) and the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) – and the IIHF. The IIHF had always maintained that athletes could not participate in the Olympics unless they were endorsed by their own country’s governing body. In this case, the AAU had run amateur hockey in the U.S. since 1930, but that organization had been expelled by the IIHF the previous year because the AAU had refused to support those players who made up the Americans’ national team, all of whom played under the auspices of the “professional” AHA.

But the IIHF recognized the AHA before the AAU, and thus welcomed the AHA, not the AAU, to the 1948 Olympics even though it was a league that paid its players. In an era of strictly amateur competition, athletes who were paid to play their sport were forbidden to participate in the Games. As a result, the AAU refused to acknowledge these players because, they said simply, “the AHA players were openly paid salaries.”

Avery Brundage, chairman of the U.S. Olympic Committee, the American governing body that controlled all amateur sports in the States, sided with the amateur AAU. He threatened to withdraw the entire U.S. Olympic team if the AHA attended the Olympics in St. Moritz. The IIHF countered by threatening to withdraw hockey from the Games if the AHA were banned.

“It isn’t a question of which hockey team should play,” Brundage said. “It is, one, whether the Olympic Games are for amateurs or for business institutions like the AHA; and two, whether the National Olympic Committee has the sole authority to certify entries as international rules specify or whether anybody can get into the picture.” At the very moment Brundage spoke, the AHA team had already arrived in St. Moritz and the AAU team was on its way. Two teams hoping to represent the same country!

Meanwhile, the Swiss Olympic Organizing Committee had already formally accepted the AHA application for participation, and the executive committee of the International Olympic Committee offered its opinion – that both U.S. entries be denied. This proposal was rejected by the Swiss committee, and the possibility of hockey being removed altogether from Olympic competition grew more real. On 20 January, the U.S. Olympic Committee upped the ante by voting 68-6 in favour of withdrawing all American athletes from the Games if the AHA were allowed to participate.

Just before the Americans were to play their first game of the tournament, the IOC relegated hockey to an “unofficial” event. Then, on 07 February, a compromise was reached whereby only the U.S. entry would be considered unofficial by the IOC. The team – the AHA team – would play all opponents and be placed in the standings, but it could not qualify for a medal and all statistics from games against the Americans would not count.

In the end, the AHA team played, but it was disqualified from the competition, in essence, marking one of the darkest days of Olympic sport.

BOXSCORE
1st Period
14:00 – 🇨🇭 GOAL – U. Poltera (G. Poltera)

2nd Period
28:15 – 🇨🇭 GOAL – U. Poltera
32:15 – 🇺🇸 GOAL – Riley (Boeser)

3rd Period
44:25 – 🇨🇭 GOAL – H. Dürst
44:46 – 🇺🇸 GOAL – Warburton (Mather)
45:55 – 🇨🇭 GOAL – G. Poltera (Trepp)
46:45 – 🇺🇸 GOAL – Warburton (Cunliffe)
54:50 – 🇨🇭 GOAL – U. Poltera
55:10 – 🇺🇸 GOAL – Warburton
🇺🇸 PEN – Cunliffe

GOALTENDERS
W: 🇨🇭 Perl
L: 🇺🇸 Harding

ROSTERS
🇨🇭 Goaltenders: Hans Bänninger, Reto Perl. Defence: Heinrich Boller, Ferdinand Cattini, Hans Cattini, Emil Handschin. Forwards: Hans Dürst, Walter Paul Dürst, Gebhard Poltera, Ulrich Poltera, Riccardo Torriani, Hans-Martin Trepp.
🇺🇸 Goaltenders: Goodwin Harding, Terrence Van Ingen. Defence: Donald Geary, Jack Kirrane, Allan Opsahl, Stanton Priddy. Forwards: Robert Baker, Bob Boeser, Bruce Cunliffe, Bruce Mather, Jack Riley, Ralph Warburton.

Article Credit: IIHF 100 Top Stories Of The Century