IOC Scrambles To Fix Dark Boards That Hosed Team USA In The Group Stage
In retrospect, putting such dark boards around the Olympic hockey rink was a bad idea
The men's hockey tournament at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina moved into the knockout stage on Tuesday, but if you watched any of the group stage action, you'll notice that something looks a little different.
Namely, the boards.
Through the group stage, the boards at the Olympic arenas featured your standard Olympic graphics. However, for whatever reason, this year, those graphics featured parts that were a very dark turquoise, almost black.
And, while they may have looked good, that's a bit of a problem in a sport with a black puck.
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The concern is obviously that the puck could disappear when it passes in front of the dark section. It's the reason we've got batter's eyes in baseball, to create some contrast so that the ball is easier to see.
This issue most notably came into play during Team USA's second game of the tournament, in which American goalie Jeremy Swayman got caught out by a shot from center ice against Denmark.
It looked like Swayman had gotten handcuffed after losing track of the puck, and that was the case, though to his credit, he just kind of shrugged it off as part of playing in different arenas.
"It was a flash screen and it was just the perfect height right between the stands and board level, and I truly lost it," Swayman said, per the Associated Press. "It’s something all of us always have to face, and we play in different arenas every night in the NHL, so this is just one, another one, and it’s a challenge that we have to embrace."
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Well, the NHL and NHLPA — along with Team USA, I'm sure — didn't want to see something like this happen again, so they lobbied the IOC to make changes, which they did.
It's a smart change. You'd hate to see a medal decided by a goal like the one that snuck past Swayman.
Unless it happens in the US's favor, in which case, I would've taken it.