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can anyone tell me why womens team usa got a bye for the quarter finals when Switz was first in their group and both Switz and Sweden scored more goals and had better goal differential?

I cannot see any basis for USA getting the bye.

In the women's tournament, the four teams in group A were the top four teams based on the 2016 IIHF World Ranking: United States, Canada, Finland and Olympic Athletes from Russia. Whereas the four teams in group B consisted of fifth ranking Sweden, host South Korea, while Switzerland and Japan had to compete in a qualification tournament.

So simply being placed in group A based the IIHF World Rankings gives them a privilege, one of which is getting possible byes.

thanks for your answer Robbie

Doesn't sound fair.

TheLionKing wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 17, 2018 12:10 am

Doesn't sound fair.

Well, many other sports organizations give a playoff bye as reward for having a higher ranking or seed. Events such as FIFA World Cup qualifications allow byes for higher ranking countries. And several North American sports leagues like CFL, NFL, MLS, and even MLB give playoff byes to higher ranked teams. Only the NBA and NHL does not give an outright playoff bye and only give home advantage as all teams must go through four rounds to win the championship.

It looks like in ice hockey, higher ranked teams automatically qualify for the Olympics tournament without a qualification tournaments, and they decided to apply that to the actual tournament itself.