The men’s Olympic hockey tournament has a different feel this year. For the first time since the 1990s, the NHL refused to allow its players to compete in the winter games, sending countries like the United States and Canada scrambling to create competitive rosters. That European leagues and the KHL (the biggest Russian/Eastern European professional league) elected to allow its players to compete creates a sort of “Miracle on Ice” possibility for the first time since the 1980s.

Earlier today researchers at Unanimous AI convened a swarm of hockey and Olympics fans to predict how the various games over the next week will play out. The medal knockout rounds begin later this evening, with eight teams competing for a spot on the medal stand by Saturday.

The first game in the eight-team tournament pits the United States against the Czech Republic. Deprived of NHL players, Team USA is instead made up of high level collegians, minor leaguers, and former NHL payers who are currently skating for European teams.  And though the NHL freeze-out may have also deprived the Czechs of some fine players, their team is still filled with players from central European leagues and the KHL.

As you can see here, although our swarm was made up of Americans they’ve got a pretty clear-eyed view of Team USA’s chances tonight. The Czechs beat Canada in a shootout in the preliminary rounds and won both their other games in the group stage. Although the swarm thinks this game may be somewhat close (and it is the least-confident pick the swarm made for the opening round games), the $71 bet confidence seems to message that there’s at least some conviction here that the Czech side will handle things in the end.

The Norwegian Olympic athletes are having a historically strong winter games in Pyeongchang, but the swarm sees that ending tonight, fairly definitively. Although Russia lost their first game of the group stage, they’ve dominated since. Norway, on the other hand, pulled the surprise of the week in hockey by somehow beating Slovenia and getting into the knockout stage. As you can see by the magnets above, the swarm thinks the clock strikes midnight pretty definitively tonight for the Norwegian Cinderellas, with the swarm assigning their highest bet confidence of the tournament on this matchup.

The other side of the bracket looks interesting. Although Canada vs Finland appears to be a close match on paper, the swarm felt confident enough in the Canadians to put down a $75 wagering confidence on this pick. Even with that confidence, however, the replay above shows some magnets that are unwavering in their conviction for the Finns. That makes this contest 3^rd of the four games when ranked by confidence.

At the start of the Olympics, if any team was given a chance by pundits to derail the Russians it was thought that perhaps Sweden might be the one. The Swedes rolled through the group stage undefeated, allowing a single goal in the process. Although their system isn’t conducive to creating offense, it is effective and the swarm likes them to beat the Germans almost as much as they liked Russia to dispense with Norway.

After tonight’s first round knockout games, the four winning teams square off in the semifinals. The two teams that win there go on to compete for the Gold, while the losing countries are left to battle for the bronze. Here’s the matchup and result the swarm sees for top honors in Pyeongchang.

The swarm predicted the Russians would handle the Czechs in the semi-final round, and then expects the OAR side to win a harder-fought game with Team Canada. Even though the swarm likes the Canadian team a great deal, here they pick the Russian athletes to make amends for a disappointing Sochi Olympiad on home soil by bringing home the top medal, and fairly convincingly.

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