The format was bonkers. There was an initial group stage with 2 groups of 6 where everybody played the other 5 teams in their group and the top 2 from each group advanced. Standard stuff so far. And Sweden won the US group while the Soviets won their group, so you'd think it would've been US vs USSR in one semi, Sweden/Finland in the other, and the winners for the gold (which is what people assume was the case). But that wasn't the format for the final round. It was a quasi-round robin with your previous match against the other advancing team from your group carrying over and each team just playing the two teams from the other group. So because the Soviets beat Finland in group play and the US tied Sweden, the standings were USSR 2 pts, US and Sweden 1 pts each, Finland with 0 pts at the start of the final round. After we beat the Soviets and Sweden tied Finland, it was US 3, USSR and Sweden 2 each, and Finland 1. So assuming the Soviets were going to beat Sweden soundly (which they eventually did), we would need to beat Finland outright to win the gold. We did and won the gold...but it wasn't "the final" and Finland actually didn't even medal. The Soviets won the silver and Sweden took the bronze.