NHL sending players back to Olympics

TORONTO — NHL players are returning to the Olympics for the first time in more than a decade.

The world's top hockey league will allow its players to participate in the Games in 2026 in Milan and in 2030 under an agreement announced Friday by the NHL, the NHL Players' Association, International Ice Hockey Federation and the IOC.

NHL players have not been at the Olympics since 2014 in Sochi.

“We know how important international competition is to our players,” NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said.

“We made it,” IIHF president Luc Tardif added. “That's two years work and more intense the last six months.”

Milan, barring another unforeseen circumstance like the pandemic that caused players to miss Beijing in 2022, will be the first Olympic opportunity for a generation of stars, led by Canadians Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar and Americans Auston Matthews, Jack Eichel and Adam Fox. It could allow McDavid, Sidney Crosby and Connor Bedard to be on the same team in a tournament with a gold medal at stake.

“Extremely badly want to play in the Olympics,” McDavid said Thursday. “I've been hopeful about that. I think everybody knows where I stand . ... All these guys that haven't had a chance to represent their country at a best on best, I think it's something that we're all hungry to do.”

The NHL paused its season for the Olympics five times from 1998 through 2014, and most of the players now in the league grew up expecting to play on that stage. Disagreements over who would pay for insurance and travel costs, the time difference between South Korea and North America were cited as factors in the NHL passing on Pyeongchang in 2018.