🇬🇧 🇨🇦 IHLC Classics: Foster & Brenchley Shock The World

From time to time, TheIHLC.com will feature detailed recaps and boxscores of some of the most legendary games in international hockey history, considered to be “IHLC Classics.” To celebrate on what should have been the day of the 2020 World Championship Gold Medal final, instead we recap one of the biggest upsets in Olympic and World Championship history, the fall of Canada at the hands of Great Britain in 1936.

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🇬🇧 Great Britain 2-1 Canada 🇨🇦
Olympic Second Round

Olympia-Kunsteis-Stadion, Garmisch-Partenkirchen 🇩🇪
Tuesday, 11 February 1936

It was an Olympics coated in sportive controversy and by the presence of Adolf Hitler, who used the global sports event as a propaganda tool, three years before the outbreak of the biggest catastrophe in the history of mankind.

In the end, history shows that Canada lost the Gold medal and Great Britain won. The process to that result, however, was anything but simple.
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🇨🇿 Aleš Hemský Announces Retirement At Age 36


Aleš Hemský, the workhorse Czech winger who spent 15 years in the National Hockey League, today announced his retirement from pro hockey at age 36, after a concussion prevented him from playing for the past three years.
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🇨🇦 Canada’s Boycott: 1970-77

With the now-cancelled 2020 World Championships set to have begun today in Switzerland, TheIHLC.com will instead highlight the last time there was a major lack of competition in the century-plus lineage of the IHLC – Canada’s international hockey boycott from 1970-77, and how the IHLC could have looked if just one fateful game in 1970 went another way.

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On 04 January 1970, the creator of modern ice hockey and the most dominant team in the game up to that point, Canada, shocked the hockey world when it announced that effective immediately, it was withdrawing from all international competition, including the World Championships, Olympic Games and other exhibition games or tournaments.
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2020 IIHF Rankings, Olympic Seedings Released (UPDATED)


With the world on pause, and all international hockey cancelled, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the IIHF today answered a few of many questions coming out of the cancellations of most major World Championship tournaments, today releasing both the 2020 Men’s and Women’s World Ranking, which in turn has officially confirmed the first qualifiers for the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
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🇨🇦 🇸🇪 IHLC Classics: The Falcons Capture Inaugural Olympic Gold

From time to time, TheIHLC.com will feature detailed recaps and boxscores of some of the most legendary games in international hockey history, considered to be “IHLC Classics.” To celebrate the centennial anniversary of the first Olympic hockey champions at the 1920 Antwerp Summer Games, today we feature the Winnipeg Falcons, who represented Canada at this historic tournament.

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🇨🇦 Canada 12-1 Sweden 🇸🇪
Olympic Gold Medal Game
Palais de Glace d’Anvers, Antwerp 🇧🇪
Monday, 26 April 1920

Seth Howander took one look at the Canadian team and decided the leggings and leather apron he usually wore in net weren’t going to cut it. Then the Swedish goaltender gathered up all the absorbent cotton he could find and covered himself in the stuff.
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🇷🇺 Andrei Markov Retires Following KHL Season Cancellation


Andrei Markov, the Russian workhorse defenceman who anchored top bluelines for over 20 seasons in both Canada and his native Russia, today announced his retirement from Lokomotiv Yaroslavl of the KHL at age 41, three weeks after the KHL season was suspended over COVID-19.
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🇸🇪 Staffan Kronwall Retires Following Lokomotiv Elimination


Swedish defender Staffan Kronwall, within the same season as his older brother Niklas, today announced his retirement from hockey after his club team, Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, was eliminated from the KHL playoffs.
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🇦🇹 Thomas Vanek Retires From Pro Hockey At Age 36


Thomas Vanek, the most decorated Austrian hockey player in history, today announced his retirement at age 36 after not being claimed during the 2020 NHL Trade Deadline, ending his 15 year professional career with stops in eight cities.
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🇺🇸 🇷🇺 IHLC Classics: The Miracle On Ice

From time to time, TheIHLC.com will feature detailed recaps and boxscores of some of the most legendary games in international hockey history, considered to be “IHLC Classics.” Today, we celebrate the 40th anniversary of perhaps the most historic game in international hockey, “The Miracle on Ice.”

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🇺🇸 United States 4-3 Soviet Union 🇷🇺
Olympic Medal Round
Olympic Fieldhouse, Lake Placid 🇺🇸
Friday, 22 February 1980

The Olympic Fieldhouse in Lake Placid, New York, hardly seemed like the place where hockey history could be made, but on one afternoon in 1980, the greatest moment in international hockey took place. It was a moment that transformed the game in one country and, over time, around the world.

It was a moment that came to define Olympic success. It was a moment that came to inspire dreams. After 22 February 1980, anything was possible.
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🇩🇪 Marcel Goc Announces Retirement From Adler Mannheim


Marcel Goc, the longtime centre who was part of the first wave of German NHL stars during his NHL career from 2004-15, announced his retirement from Adler Mannheim of the Deutsche Eishockey Liga, capping a 22 season pro hockey career.
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IIHF Hall Of Fame Announces 2020 Inductees


The IIHF has announced the Hall Of Fame Class of 2020, to be inducted at May’s World Championships in Zürich, Switzerland, with two native Swiss players highlighting the class, as the IIHF will induct Ryan Smyth, Alexei Yashin, Kimmo Timonen and countrymen Mark Streit and Mathias Seger to the Hall.
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🇸🇪 Jimmie Ericsson Announces Retirement Following Failed Achilles Rehab


Swedish winger Jimmie Ericsson, a longtime member of Tre Kronor and a standout in the Swedish Hockey League, today announced that after failing to rehab an injured Achilles tendon, he would retire from hockey at the age of 39.
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🇨🇦 Bailey Bram Retires From Team Canada After 100 Games


Canadian forward Bailey Bram, who saw her 13-year career take her from the NCAA to CWHL, Swedish league and top levels of international hockey, today announced her retirement from hockey at the age of 29.
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🇩🇪 Dennis Seidenberg Announces Retirement At Age 38


German defender Dennis Seidenberg, a permanent fixture on Germany’s blueline and a longtime NHLer, who made history as just the second German to win the Stanley Cup, announced his retirement from pro hockey at age 38.
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🇸🇪 Triple Gold Club Member Niklas Kronwall Retires At Age 38


Swedish defenceman Niklas Kronwall, the feared physical blueliner with an equally fearsome slapshot, today announced his retirement from hockey, after an illustrious 20 year career that includes a Stanley Cup, Olympic and World Championship Gold, and membership in the Triple Gold Club.
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🇸🇰 🇸🇪 IHLC Classics: Sweden Throws The Game To Slovakia?

From time to time, TheIHLC.com will feature detailed recaps and boxscores of some of the most legendary games in international hockey history, considered to be “IHLC Classics.” Today, in honour of Slovakia’s Constitution Day, we look back at a Slovak Olympic victory, one of the most controversial games in recent memory, which speculation of Sweden “throwing” the match still rampant to this day.

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🇸🇰 Slovakia 3-0 Sweden 🇸🇪
Olympic Preliminary Round
Torino Esposizioni, Turin 🇮🇹
Tuesday, 21 February 2006

Behind the closed door of the locker room at Torino Esposizioni, Bengt-Åke Gustafsson, coach of the Swedish hockey team, gathered his players Tuesday and delivered his pregame address. He told them to try to beat Slovakia, defenceman Nicklas Lidström said.
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🇸🇰 Radoslav Suchý Retires From Slovenská Extraliga At Age 43


Slovak defender Radoslav Suchý, a defensive defenceman who made his presence felt both on the international and professional stages in the United States, Switzerland and his native Slovakia, announced his retirement from hockey at age 43.
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🇨🇦 Cam Ward Retires From Carolina Hurricanes At Age 35


Cam Ward, the Canadian goalkeeper who propelled to stardom following his stellar rookie campaign that saw him win the Stanley Cup, today signed a one-day contract to retire as a member of the Carolina Hurricanes, ending his hockey career at the age of 35.
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