All things Olympics: The games, the trade freeze, the horrible schedule after

It will soon be Olympic break time in the NHL. Meanwhile, the PWHL actually began their break on January 29.

The 2026 Winter Olympics start in Milano Cortina on February 4. The opening ceremony is actually on Friday, February 6 and that will air at 1:50 pm ET on CBC and CBC GEM in Canada. NHL players will arrive after the ceremony for the most part, so some will take the opportunity to arrive early and march with their teams.

Canadian viewers can watch most events on TV on the CBC or online via CBC.ca and GEM. There is usually live coverage of multiple sports in a studio-hosted format – the television broadcast feed – as well as dedicated streams of specific events. Naturally the hockey games featuring Team Canada will be covered in full live. Other hockey games will likely be available live. Watching via GEM is easier if you make an account and sign in.

Discovering the availability in America for all Olympic events is a project American residents will have to take up on their own. NBC is the rights-holder:

Note the time difference. Milan is six hours ahead of Toronto, so the latest you can reasonably start a hockey game is late afternoon in the eastern time zone.

Overtime and Points

Both the men's and women's tournaments use a three-point system like the PWHL has: 3 points for a RW, 2 for a OTW, 1 for a OTL, 0 for a L.

Overtime is three-on-three with a shootout for all games except the gold medal game. It is five minutes of overtime in the preliminary round, 10 minutes in the playoff games and 20-minutes of sudden death with no shootout in the gold-medal games.

The shootout procedure will get explained on TV when and if it's required, but it is the IIHF standard method as are the ordering criteria and tie-breaking methods used in both tournaments.

Rules

The IIHF uses a unified rulebook for all hockey, with some very short segments outlining the differences for women's games which are mostly equipment related. The big difference between the IIHF rules and the PWHL is the way body contact is regulated. The IIHF has not moved toward the PWHL standard, but all players will fully understand the differences. How referees will call body contact is usually where the confusion lies.

In general the IIHF rulebook is identical to the NHL's with a short list of differences.

Icing is not hybrid, it is a "will it cross the goal line" standard.

There is no trapezoid in IIHF hockey.

The goalie interference rules are widely misunderstood, but it is not true that an opposing player in the crease automatically constitutes goalie interference. Again, the question will be how a mixed crew of referees will call this rule.

The illegal check to the head rule is written differently and this is a complex question beyond the scope of this article, for a look at the different approach to the language, this touches on it:

The NHL Department of Player Safety will be involved in the supplemental discipline at the Olympics, so again it's a question of how these differences will be interpreted. There are no rules about the form supplemental discipline will take.

Team Canada Women

For following the games and results, the IIHF site is a handy one-stop shop for the event. The schedule, scores, teams and standings are all there in a format that is familiar to World Championship fans. Hockey Canada also provides all this information on their site as well.

Canada opens against Finland on Thursday, February 5, and most of Canada's games are afternoon starts at around 3 pm ET.

The women's tournament is run differently to the men's but it uses what is recognizable as the old IIHF women's format (which is about to be changed, but that's a problem for the summer).

There are two groups of five teams, and each team plays within their group exclusively in the preliminary round. This round serves to order the teams in the top group: Canada, USA, Czechia, Finland and Switzerland. All five are guaranteed a trip to the quarterfinals. The second group is ordered as well, and the top three teams move into the quarterfinals. That group consists of Sweden, Japan, Germany, France and the hosts, Italy. Normally, that place would be taken by Hungary or Denmark. There are no placement games.

The women's quarterfinals begin on Friday, February 13, and the medal games are on Thursday, February 19. The rest days in the playoff rounds are much more numerous than at a world championship.

The PWHL is back in business a full week after the gold medal is given out.

Team Canada Men

NHL players depart for the games around February 7, so whoever is on that plane is on the roster. There is some flexibility for adding injury replacements, but it's not wide open due to doping protocols.

The IIHF site for the men gives you all the information you need, while the games are covered on NHL.com as well via the usual schedule section.

Canada starts on day two of the tournament with a game against Czechia on Thursday, February 12. That game is at 10:40 am ET, and several of the preliminary men's games for Canada are on in the morning in the eastern time zone.

The men's tournament has three groups of four teams each. Canada is in Group A with Switzerland, Czechia and France. The Olympics use a unique format for the men's tournament that is closer to the women's than to what the Men's World Championships uses.

Each group plays a preliminary round within their group. The results of that round are combined into a full ordering of all 12 teams. The first four teams will receive a bye into the quarterfinals and are the home teams for those games. The other eight teams play in a single-elimination qualification round with the four winners moving on to the quarterfinals. Once that is set, the tournament continues as you'd expect with a re-seeding of teams going into the semifinals.

The men's gold-medal game is on Sunday, February 22 at 8 am ET.

Like the recent WJC, the Olympics allows a playing roster of 20 skaters and 2 goalies. There is no rule or even common practice about how the extra skaters are used. So a team can choose forwards or defence according to their needs for the extras.

From an early rundown on rule differences:

Is ice hockey fighting allowed at the Olympic Games?

Fighting may be part of ice hockey’s culture, sometimes even part of the spectacle, but it has no place at the Olympic Winter Games. The IIHF rulebook is explicit: fighting is not part of international hockey’s DNA. Players who drop the gloves in Olympic competition face major penalties and possible ejection.

It's totally not allowed and we might penalize you for it, how is an open question. How this will actually play out is something we'll find out when the players do.

Trade Freeze

The NHL has an Olympic trade and player movement freeze, and I will defer to the expert in PuckPedia.

The freeze runs from Wednesday, February 4 at 3 pm to February 22 at one minute to midnight. That is, of course the same day as the gold-medal game. The first NHL games played after the Olympics are on Wednesday, February 25, and the Leafs start a back-to-back that evening.

No trades can be filed during the freeze, but that doesn't mean GMs can't talk to each other. The trade deadline is 12 days after the freeze ends on March 6 at 3 pm.

There is a complex set of rules about which waiver-exempt players can be sent down during the freeze which you can read at the link above, and there are regular waivers allowed, but any player waived after their final game before the freeze doesn't have to report until February 17.

The Leafs play on the road in Edmonton the day before the freeze begins, so they are in a bit of bind if they want to put any waivers-requiring player in the AHL for the break. They'd have to waive them before that game.

They essentially solved this problem in advance by waiving Dakota Mermis, and sending him and Henry Thrun down already and recalling Marshall Rifai. Rifai's waiver exemption will still be valid come the freeze and he can return to the AHL. The only likely forward to be sent to the Marlies is the exempt Easton Cowan.

Paying the Price

The Leafs play three games in the final four days of February. They then play 15 games in March and seven games in 15 days in April.

Anyone who believes that's a reasonable schedule for NHL hockey is living in a fantasy land. There is reportedly already some clues dropping in the NHL offices that in two years when they do the World Cup and also play 84 games, they can't do this again.

Helpful Resource

This post lists the men's schedule in condensed form and has broadcasters for several countries around the world:

https://www.olympics.com/en/milano-cortina-2026/news/mens-ice-hockey-tournament-milano-cortina-2026-preview-schedule-watch

Olympic Coverage