Ice hockey at the Olympics has evolved over time. From its inception in 1920, until the 1970s games were played with just seven players per team and no forward passes. In the early 70s, IIHF rules were adopted and goalie masks were introduced. In 1992, playoffs were added and ties in medal-games were decided by shootout.

The Olympic tournament starts with a round-robin series of games and the top six teams advance to a final round. In 1998, the NHL’s participation was permitted and the first NHL players won gold medals at the Olympics. The 1980 Lake Placid Miracle on Ice remains one of the most dramatic upsets in the history of the sport.

After a long tournament, Canada and Sweden were tied in the final and faced off for a gold medal. The game was tied through regulation and a 10-minute sudden death overtime period, but the teams remained deadlocked in a modified shootout format that saw each player take a shot from five different spots on the rink.

With less than a second left, Mark Johnson, the U.S. captain who scored the winning goal in the Miracle on Ice, swung his stick around and got the puck past the Soviet goalie, Tretiak, to give the Americans a 4-3 victory. The win marked the first time that an American team defeated a powerhouse Soviet team in an Olympic game. It also put the U.S. on the path to becoming a dominant force in world hockey for decades to come.