Ice hockey at the 1936 Winter Olympics

The 1936 Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen hosted the fifth Olympic ice hockey tournament, which also counted as the tenth World Championships and the 21st European Championships. Great Britain’s team pulled off a major upset by winning the gold medal, achieving several firsts: they became the first team to win Olympic, World, and European titles in the same year, and the first to stop Canada from taking Olympic gold after four consecutive wins.

Great Britain had finished third in 1924 and fourth in 1928, but those teams were mostly made up of Canadian Army officers and university graduates living in the U.K. This time, the team was required to be British-born. Only one player was actually born in Canada, but nine of the thirteen roster players grew up there, and eleven had previously played in Canada.

Before the games, the Ligue Internationale de Hockey sur Glace (LIHG) ruled that Jimmy Foster and Alex Archer were ineligible for Great Britain because the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association (CAHA) had suspended them for not seeking permission to transfer internationally. British manager Bunny Ahearne argued that international rules allowed a player to leave a country without permission, so the CAHA suspensions should not apply. CAHA president E. A. Gilroy had complained to the LIHG in September 1935, but the LIHG didn’t meet until the eve of the Olympics. Gilroy denied making a last-minute protest out of fear that Canada—represented by the 1935 Allan Cup runners-up, the Port Arthur Bearcats—might lose to Great Britain. He chose not to object as a gesture of sportsmanship. The Canadian Press reported that Canadian officials lifted the suspensions on Foster and Archer only after “considerable pressure had been brought to bear on Canadian officials by British Olympic higher-ups.”

The Americans were unhappy, believing the rules weren’t being followed, and the French were angry that Canada hadn’t withdrawn its protest with them. Before the second round, other hockey nations threatened to protest Great Britain’s wins due to the use of CAHA players and called for an emergency meeting.

Yugoslavia had planned to compete but dropped out on short notice. For the opening round, the 15 teams were drawn into three groups of four and one group of three.