Does NHL have China syndrome?
Cool to South Korea Olympics, warm to Beijing
Al most 10,000 kilometres and multiple t i me z o nes away from the NHL’s head offices in the gut of Manhattan, there is a pot of gold at the end of the financial rainbow that has the league a little more than mildly intrigued.
It’s called China. It has a population of 1.35 billion. And within that cache of humanity is an untapped resource of potential players, fans and sponsors that the league is hoping to exploit.
It’s important to keep all this in mind when you hear the he- said, she- said public negotiating regarding the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
The NHL’s stance is simple: Either the International Olympic Committee picks up the costs for issues such as player insurance, travel and lodging ( as it has in the past); or the league will not agree to allow its players to participate. Case closed.
At least that’s what league officials are telling anyone who will listen.
Consider the back- andforth of conflicting information that emerged on Wednesday.
In the morning, The Associated Press reported that International Ice Hockey Federation president Rene Fasel believes the odds are 50- 50 that NHL players will be on hand at the Games in South Korea in two years.
Judging by his comments, Fasel appears more optimistic now than he was in May when he told reporters there was a 60- per- cent chance NHLers would not attend.
However, NHL vicepresident Bill Daly does not appear to share in Fasel’s glass- half- full outlook and said as much later in the day, stating that a recent update received by the league regarding talks between the IIHF and the IOC did not provide much promise.
“I’m not going to handi- cap it, but what I’d say is I think time is very short to make a decision and I’m not sure there’s been a lot of progress made in the past six months,” Daly said. “And I’m not sure there’s any prospect of progress being made. So on the basis of that I would say I’m more negative today than I was two weeks ago.”
Talk about raining on Fasel’s five-ring parade.
Negotiating ploy? Or telling it like it is? You be the judge.
For his part, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman added that “the discussions are at a point where the IOC has made its position clear and I think it’s fair to say the IIHF, Rene Fasel, is trying to figure out what to do.”
Here’s where the China angle comes in. Asked by Postmedia about the possibility for the growth of the game there, Daly acknowledged NHLers could still attend the 2022 Beijing Games even if they skip South Korea. “It could be. There’s no doubt,” Daly said of the potential that China holds when i t comes to hockey.
“I think we’ve been very open to the fact that when the IOC awarded the Beijing Games, it certainly created a bigger opportunity than potentially existed before. But it is also possible you don’t go to one Olympics and you go to the other. ”
In other words, the end game here could very well be China.
While Daly’s comments certainly cast a gloom- anddoom f or 2018, here’s a question: Is the IOC really going to allow the NHL to turn its back on Korea, yet welcome it to China four years later with open arms? That remains to be seen.
What is much more clear is how the NHL continues to knock on China’s door.
The bottom line: While NHL players have a desire to go to the 2018 Games in South Korea, the league’s appetite seems less so. But the hunger to go to Beijing four years later, well, that’s a completely different story.
Whether one decision affects the other will be a fascinating storyline in the coming weeks and months.