After three rounds of qualification tournaments, including 24 nations, the final field is set for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver. Germany, Latvia and Norway won their respective final qualification tournaments – all on home ice – to book the three available spots.

When the men’s Olympic tournament begins in Vancouver on , this is how the groups will look:

Group A: Canada, United States, Switzerland, Norway

Group B: Russia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Latvia

Group C: Sweden, Finland, Belarus, Germany

Qualification began back in October 2008 with the first pre-qualification tournament. This is how Germany, Latvia and Norway ended up as the last three teams in the Olympic field (teams are listed according to IIHF World Ranking, group winners in bold):

PRE-QUALIFICATION – OCTOBER 9-11, 2008

Group A (Ankara, Turkey): Bulgaria, Spain, Mexico, Turkey

OLYMPIC PRE-QUALIFICATION – NOVEMBER 6-9, 2008

Group B (Narva, Estonia): Kazakhstan, Netherlands, Estonia, Spain

Group C (Budapest, Hungary): Hungary, Lithuania, Croatia, Serbia

Group D (Sanok, Poland): Poland, Japan, Romania, Great Britain

FINAL OLYMPIC QUALIFCATION – FEBRUARY 5-8, 2009

Group E (Hanover, Germany): Germany, Slovenia, Austria, Japan

Group F (Riga, Latvia): Latvia, Italy, Ukraine, Hungary

Group G (Oslo, Norway): Norway, Denmark, France, Kazakhstan