With the Olympics just around the corner, there’s a lot to be excited about. The best NHL players in the world will return to Olympic ice hockey, the game that made them famous, and once again battle for medals in front of a passionate crowd. The games will be officiated by officials from both the NHL and the IIHF, a system that allows the two groups to collaborate on rules and interpretations to produce seamless and consistent officiating.

But there are other changes to the Olympic tournament that will be of interest to fans of the sport. Most significantly, there will be no more round-robin series of games; instead, the top six teams in each group will enter the medal round and play each other. The winning team will earn a gold medal, and the other five will receive bronze medals.

The change should make the competition more exciting. But it also could result in a higher number of ties. In the past, a tie meant that the winner was determined by goal differential. A tie in a playoff game means that the two teams would play one additional overtime period of three-on-three hockey before a shootout was held to determine the winner.

During the 2002 Olympic games in Salt Lake City, Canada, which had defeated the Soviet Union in the semi-finals to set up the first gold-medal game between the two nations since the 1980 Miracle on Ice, took a 2-0 lead into the third period against the defending champions. But a deflection off the skate of Monique Lamoureux slipped through the five-hole of Canadian goaltender Shannon Szabados with less than three minutes to go, allowing the Americans to score a late goal and force the game into overtime.