Ice hockey at the Olympic Games included. The IIHF considers the 1920 tournament to be the first Ice Hockey World Championship. From then on, the two events occurred concurrently, and every Olympic tournament until 1968 is counted as the World Championship. The Olympic Games were originally intended for amateur athletes, so the players of the National Hockey League (NHL) and other professional leagues were not allowed to play. The first Winter Olympic Games were held in 1924 in Chamonix, France. Chapter 1, article 6, of the 2007 edition of the Olympic Charter defines winter sports as "sports which are practised on snow or ice". Ice hockey
Winter Olympic Games a single Winter Games. Norway led the total medal standings with 39, the highest number of medals by a nation in any Winter Olympics, followed by Germany's 31 and Canada's 29. Host nation South Korea won seventeen medals, their highest medal haul at a Winter Olympics. The host city for the 2022 Winter Olympics is Beijing, the capital of People's Republic of China, elected on 31 July 2015 at the 128th IOC Session in Kuala Lumpur. Beijing will be the first city ever to have hosted both the Summer and Winter Olympics. The 2022 Winter Olympics will take place between