Hockey, Men

This hockey tournament was the first to be played on artificial turf. The International Hockey Federation was initially opposed to this, but the Canadians claimed they would be unable to offer quality natural grass pitches for the entire tournament. Nowadays, all international matches are played on artificial surfaces. The number of participating nations had been cut back from 16 to 12, and was further reduced when Kenya joined the African boycott. Great Britain had lost to Belgium for the final qualifying position. Ghana was the next African team after Kenya, but they had played very poorly in qualifying so Britain was offered the spot when Kenya announced they would withdraw. However, Kenya did not notify the IOC of their withdrawal in time so the Fédération Internationale de Hockey (FIH) elected to play the tournament with only 11 teams. The British team was actually at Heathrow Airport when they heard the news, preparing to leave for Montreal, but they had to return to their homes.

The tournament had many upsets. 1975 World Champion India did not make the semi-finals, and neither did defending Olympic Champion West Germany. Oceanian nations Australia and New Zealand did make the cut, along with hockey powerhouses Pakistan and the Netherlands. The latter team had been unbeaten in pool play, and heavily underestimated their semi-final opponents, New Zealand. After three overtime periods, the Kiwis scored the winning goal from a penalty corner. The other country from “down under”, Australia, also upset their opponents 2-1, to make for a completely unexpected final line-up. This was even more surprising as the artificial turf was assumed to be an advantage to technically superior teams. The final was a rather boring affair, with Tony Ineson scoring the only goal on a penalty corner.