The tournament featured twelve countries, eight qualifying through the
IIHF World Ranking, the host
Italy, and three through qualifying tournaments. The format remained the same as the previous four Olympics; three groups of four competed in three games to determine seeding, each played every other team in their group, followed by four rounds of elimination games. Each group winner received a bye into the second round, along with the highest ranked of the remaining teams. The remaining eight teams played an eliminating qualification game to advance to the quarter-final round. Each quarter-final winner advanced to the semi-finals, with the winners playing for the gold medal and the losers playing for the bronze. On 2 February 2024, the IIHF announced that an agreement had been reached with the
National Hockey League (NHL) for a break in its regular season to allow the league's players to participate in the Olympics for the first time since 2014. The NHL was originally scheduled to compete in 2022 as well but opted out due to the
COVID-19 pandemic.
Qualification Qualification for the men's tournament at the
2026 Winter Olympics was determined by the
IIHF World Ranking following the
2023 Men's Ice Hockey World Championships. The top eight joined the hosts and three qualifiers. Qualifiers one, two and three are the winners of the final qualification tournaments. Their designation was determined by their
qualification seeding. ==Women's tournament==