Here’s what you need to know about the men’s Olympic hockey tournament

While the US chose to go with a mostly experienced squad, four skaters now playing college hockey made the team: F Troy Terry (currently playing for defending NCAA champ Denver), F Jordan Greenway (Boston University), D Will Borgen (St. Cloud State) and F Ryan Donato (Harvard).

Any sort of inconvenience the Olympics may cause to next season’s schedule is a small price to pay compared to the opportunity to showcase our game and our greatest players on this enormous worldwide stage.

It’s going to be a tough road for the Swiss, who find themselves matched up with the Canadians, the always-tough Czech Republic and host South Korea in Group A. While a handful of forwards competed in major junior hockey in North America, only two – Cody Almond and Simon Moser – have even appeared in an NHL game.

Jan Mursak tied the game on an empty-net goal and then scored the game-winner in overtime to give Slovenia a 3-2 victory over the United States on Wednesday in the opening game of the Olympic men’s hockey pool play.

The United States had a 2-0 lead entering the third period thanks to goals by Brian O’Neill and Jordan Greenway. Team USA had to kill off a two-minute penalty with less than 10 minutes left. “I think the “W” is a little more important”, Szabados said. I have goosebumps just knowing that he’s over there in the Olympics.

“I think we’re fighting along with the rest of the middle of the pack as far as personnel”. I’m so excited. He’s a warrior. “I’m happy I am the first”.

Brian Gionta, from Rochester, serves as team captain and is the only returning Olympian. At 5-foot-11 and 185 pounds, he has been a consistent points producer wherever he has played.

The Russian team includes a number of world stars, such as Pavel Datsyuk, Ilya Kovalchuk and Sergei Mozyakin, as well as talented young players Kirill Kaprizov and Nikita Gusev.

“That opportunity that they got is a lot of parallels to the opportunity we’re getting today in this Olympics”, O’Neill said the other day.

Slovakia’s national team has not defeated Russian hockey players in official matches for eight years since 2010 Olympics in Canada’s Vancouver. He won’t score a goal, take a faceoff or block a single shot, but Jim Johannson will be as much a part of the U.S. Olympic team as he was when he played for it in 1988 and 1992.

DirecTV Now: NBC Sports Network is included in each of the four main channel packages. Also, as the captain of that 1980 team, Mike Eruzione pointed out to NBC this week that this USA team is hardly the group of strangers that his team began as. While Canada has often trusted NHL-players in World Championships, their European quality has increased significantly as of late. “They’ve played with each other”. While the Finnish team seems a bit tiresome from the edges, they’ve proved to be always competitive in worldwide level and have great depth which might come in handy with extremely tight schedule. “The sport of hockey brings people together right away”.