Mondial Toboggan Hockey sur glace à l’italienne (2019)
When Mondial Toboggan released the disco-track “Hockey sur glace à l’italienne” as part of their album Olympique in 2019, the French instrumental quartet was potentially blessed with the gift of foresight—and even if they were not, they must’ve been delighted when Italy was announced as the host country for the 2026 Winter Olympics just before their LP’s release.
The Olympia-inspired concept album rightfully highlights ice hockey as one of the iconic Winter Olympic sports—but did you know that Olympic ice hockey was once played in the summer?
Yup, really! The first Olympics featuring ice hockey should have been the 1916 Games in Berlin, which did not happen because of World War I. So instead, hockey’s Olympic premiere happened in Belgium in 1920. This time there was a (comparatively tiny) hiccup: The Olympics had at this point not been split into Summer and Winter Games, and the event was set to happen in August. But why should that be a problem? The Olympic disciplines of ice skating and ice hockey were simply carried out four months earlier, that is, in April. Today’s promotional agencies would call it a teaser.
Seven teams competed in this first Olympic ice hockey competition, with the U.S. and Canada decimating some of the other teams (Switzerland lost 0-29 to the U.S.) and Canada winning the sport’s first Olympic gold medal.
This, by the way, was the only time Olympic ice hockey was played in a season other than winter: For the very next Games, summer and winter disciplines were established. In the Winter Games ice hockey competition in Paris in 1924, Canada won again. They’ve kept up the streak: In the 2026 Milan Games, Canada will enter the competition as the nation with the most Olympic ice hockey medals.
Dig Deeper
The Olympic Games, as one of, if not the biggest sporting events worldwide, are inherently tied to current politics and debates of social and economic issues (the 1920 Belgium Games are a case in point). In his 2024 non-fiction debut book The Other Olympians, writer Michael Waters details the story of pioneering trans and intersex Olympic athletes in the early 20th century and how these events impact the debate around gender- and sex-inclusive sports to this day.
"Michael Waters performs an Olympian act of storytelling, using the stories of these extraordinary athletes to explore in brilliant detail the struggle for understanding and equality."—Jonathan Eig, author of King: A Life
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