Why Canada-USA gold medal men's hockey game starts early at 8 a.m. ET on Sunday

Hockey fans in North America are throwing up their arms in frustration:

Why does the upcoming gold medal men's hockey game on Sunday start so early?

It'll be Canada and the United States playing for the Olympic championship in Milan. The game will begin at 8 a.m. ET, which is 5 a.m. on the West Coast.

That's earlier than either team has had a game begin all tournament.

But as the more measured among us have pointed out, there's a clear and obvious reason for this.

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Why does the gold medal men's hockey game start so early?

It's all about logistics in the host country.

The game will have an opening faceoff of 2 p.m. in Italy, which is a fair start time. It just happens to be six hours ahead, or more, of many of the people watching these two nations from back home.

For starters, they can't predict who will be in that match, so there's only so much they can do.

The Winter Olympics also always schedules the men's hockey gold medal game for the final day of the Games, the same day as the Closing Ceremonies.

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The Closing Ceremonies get underway at 8:30 p.m. in Italy (2:30 p.m. ET), and so there would be no way to also have the hockey game be a night game specifically for American viewership.

This is also relatively standard. Past gold medal men's hockey games have begun in the early afternoon on the final day of the Olympics. It'll just vary what time that is in North America depending on what country is hosting the Games.

Maybe it's a tough break for fans of these nations. But alarm clocks were invented for a reason. Apparently that reason is gold medal hockey.

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