NHL won’t take part in S. Korea Olympics
It appears the 2018 Winter Olympics will lack the star power of Sidney Crosby, Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews after the NHL announced Monday it will not interrupt next season to accommodate the Pyeongchang Games.
Instead, hockey will likely be represented on the global stage by many players with unrecognizable names — think Brad Schlegel, David Harlock and Dwayne Norris from Canada’s silver-medal winning team at the 1994 Lillehammer Games.
“It’s very disappointing and I feel like we’re short-changing some of the younger players that haven’t had that opportunity,” two-time gold medal winning Canadian goaltender Carey Price said.
He added: “At a human level this is a big worldwide event that the world takes part in and we want to shine our light, too.”
The NHL Players’ Association said in a statement that players are “extraordinarily disappointed and adamantly disagree with the NHL’s shortsighted decision.”
“The League’s efforts to blame others for its decision is as unfortunate as the decision itself,” the statement read. “NHL players are patriotic and they do not take this lightly.”
What exactly might have swayed the opinion of owners toward letting players attend isn’t clear. The group never bought into the idea that shutting down the season for 17 days in February would benefit the league in the long run.
Their angst was most certainly sparked by the International Olympic Committee’s insistence that out-of-pocket payments for players to attend in 2018 would no longer be covered.
“I think when the IOC said ‘You know what, we don’t think it’s worth it, we’re not going to pay,’ I think that may have opened a whole can of worms,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said at one point in the process.
And from there, the owners dug in their heels and never moved — even when the International Ice Hockey Federation found apparent money to cover costs like travel, accommodation and insurance.
But it was beyond just dollars and limited growth potential from South Korea. Owners were wary of the season disruption and impact of a compressed schedule along with increased risk for player injury — a small price to pay, the NHLPA argued, for the opportunity to reach fans on the “enormous international stage.”
Bettman said in March that “there’s somewhere between fatigue and negativity on the subject.”
In a statement announcing their decision, the NHL said “no meaningful dialogue has materialized,” pointing fingers at both the IOC and NHLPA.
The league revealed a relatively new position from the IOC, suggesting that participation at the 2022 Beijing Games hinged on participation in 2018 and adding that the NHLPA had demonstrated “no interest or intention of engaging in any discussion that might make Olympic participation more attractive to the clubs.”
What the players’ association could have presented is unclear. Perhaps a counter-offer to a late2016 proposal that swapped Olympic participation for an extension of the current collective bargaining agreement might have moved the needle.
The NHLPA balked at that proposal, unwilling to hurriedly alter terms of an agreement reached to conclude the 2012-13 lockout.