3-on-3 hockey league launches with eye toward Olympics

Hours before Canada beat the U.S. to win women's hockey gold at the Beijing Olympics in February, International Ice Hockey Federation officials lamented having only two medal events on sports' biggest stage.

The IIHF and IOC have discussed adding to that, and a new 3-on-3 league that debuted earlier this month could be another step toward more hockey on a global scale. With Hall of Famers Bryan Trottier, Grant Fuhr, Joe Mullen and Larry Murphy among the coaches and fast-paced games featuring plenty of goals, 3ICE is another experiment that could make 3-on-3 part of hockey's long-term future.

"We want to get this thing off the ground and make sure it's entertaining — it's got the entertainment aspect to the degree we can possibly give it and give it some credibility," said Trottier, who won the Stanley Cup six times as a player. "All of us would be grateful for the opportunity to grow with this to the point where it does go bigger, better, Olympic, global: wherever the growth takes it."

Seven years after the NHL adopted 3-on-3 for overtime in the regular season, 3ICE founder E.J. Johnston has big ideas about taking it international and eventually holding a youth tournament like baseball's Little League World Series and annual adult world championships.

Commissioner Craig Patrick, a back-to-back Cup winner in 1991 and '92 as general manager of the Pittsburgh Penguins and gold medallist as an assistant coach on the 1980 U.S. "Miracle On Ice" team, has been impressed with the available talent since tryouts in April and sees room for 3-on-3 hockey to carve out room in a crowded entertainment landscape.

"A lot of sports are going to short-form type things, and that's kind of what we are, like BIG3 basketball," Patrick said.