Hockey Winter Olympics Futures

One of the most interesting team medals in the Olympic Games is definitely the ice hockey competition which this year offers a huge opportunity for those interesting in betting on this tournament. The Olympic men's hockey tournament may be the most talked about in quite some time, mostly due to what won't be making an appearance in PyeonChang: NHL players. For some reason there aren't any of the big stars who usually grace the ice hockey rinks, but unfortunately this time round it won't be the case. However this is also an interesting opportunity for those who are new to betting to take their chances in this arena. And on 5dimes.com, there are massive opportunities to move forward in this respect ith lots of competitive odds.

As an idiot's guide to the Winter Olympics Ice Hockey tournament here's the deal. Ice Hockey at the 2018 Winter Olympics consists of 12 Men's teams and 8 Women's teams. Each team can carry a maximum of 22 players and three goaltenders on their roster and up to five players may skate on the ice at one time (goaltender is usually sixth player). A game consists of three 20 minute periods.

The Games will be broadcast on NBC, NBCSN and across the networks of NBC Universal. Every Olympic event will be available to stream live and on-demand on NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app. So there's more than enough coverage for you to get out your betting calculator. For the men's tournament, as odds go the Russian IOC team is the best at +1002 followed by Canada on +4505 and Sweden at +4505.50. For women's the USA are hot favourites at -135 followed by Canada at +115 and Finland at +1000.

While perhaps the most fun part of the lead-up to the Games-debating just who would end up on any given country's roster-is over, we can now move on to measuring up the teams filled with former North American pros, KHL veterans and up-and-coming prospects. It will be hard to bet against any of the traditional power teams, especially with the Russian contingency (known as Olympic Athletes from Russia due to the country's doping ban) featuring players like Pavel Datsyuk and Ilya Kovalchuk. Sweden has never been truly star-dependent and should be its usual team game-oriented self, while Canada has no shortage of hockey talent born within its borders.

As for the women, the year 1998 will be a big factor when it comes to PyeongChang: The U.S. won the inaugural tournament that year, making it the last time any team other than Canada took home gold. The Americans were :55 from ending that drought in Sochi four years ago, but fell victim to a collapse the players still refer to as "heartbreaking" and "gut-wrenching." While the U.S. and Canada have been the the major gold favorites in the first 20 years of Olympic women's hockey, the rest of the world has showed signs that it's catching up-witness upstart Finland's win over Canada at the 2017 World Championships.

The women's bracket begins on Feb. 10 and will feature eight countries vying for the top of the podium, with two groups of four teams whittling themselves down to a four-team single-elimination round. Medals will be handed out in the final two games on Feb. 22. The men's tournament gets its start on the 14th, with 12 teams in three groups opening up the first stage of play, with eight teams advancing to single-game, bracket-style competition. The third-place game takes place on the 24th, with the gold-medal finale the following day. . For the most part, players-and fans watching at home-can expect a lot of the same hockey they're already familiar with, though there are a few notable changes when it comes to the Olympic rulebook. For starters, the ice surface is wider, the rosters are bigger and the trapezoid area behind the net that NHL fans have learned to deal with is gone. While the game clock starts at zero and counts upward, don't worry. it'll stop at 20:00. And you can also expect lots of excitement as new and less established players will be looking to make an impression on the tournament. And who knows? Maybe they can even end up in the NHL after all!