The game of hockey as we know it today, was developed in Canada. The first official rules of hockey were also Canadian. These rules were published in 1877 in the Montreal Gazette newspaper. But hockey has its roots in a wide variety of similar sports, played long ago in many different countries. NHL players played in the Olympics for the first time at Nagano, Japan in 1998. The Czech Republic won. Fifty years after Canada had won its last Olympic gold, Canada won gold once again at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, U.S.A.