IIHF releases 2022 Olympic schedule

It may seem hard to believe but in just over four months, the puck will drop on the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, and we already know the schedule!

If you’re located in North America, you’ll want to pay special attention to the times and dates as typically the first game(s) of the day in China is actually the day before in North America, just really late at night. Time zones and date lines, amiright?

For the first time, the Games will be played with the expanded 10 team format. They’re seeded into two groups based on their world rankings. Group A features the US, Canada, Switzerland, Finland, and Russian Olympic Committee.

Three of the Group B teams have yet to be determined as the qualification tournaments were pushed back repeatedly due to COVID. The first three tournaments are on Oct. 6 with the winners moving to the final three tournaments on Nov. 11. They’ll join Japan, the sixth ranked team in the world, and China, the host nation.

The tournament will kick off on Feb. 3, 2022 (Feb. 2, 2022 if you’re located in North America)  with host country China playing the top qualifier.

As is traditional, the US and Canada preliminary game is on the final day of group play.

The tournament wraps up on Feb. 17/16 with the gold medal game at 11:10 p.m. eastern standard time. If it’s anything like the 2018 game, you might want to consider taking the next day off work.

2022 Olympic Schedule