NHL EXECS NEED GAMES PLAN
Olympics is good for hockey: Todd
The annual orgy of self-congratulation known as the all-star break spiralled so far out of control this weekend our spies say a number of NHL execs turned up at local hospitals in Los Angeles.
Broken arms, don’t you know. From patting themselves on the back.
Other then Chris Pronger pushing Justin Bieber into the glass (if only that had been a real Pronger hit) there was no real point to any of it, as usual. A fulldress Sportsnet panel analyzing the skills competition with straight faces? Seriously?
Somehow, it was so NHL for the league to trot out its 100 greatest players without ranking them. Is that where we’re headed? At the end of the regular season, we just draw lots to see who gets the playoff spots, because it isn’t nice to rank teams according to who won the most games? Heaven help us.
(Since the NHL won’t rank the greatest players, we will: Bobby Orr, Wayne Gretzky, Gordie Howe, Mario Lemieux, Jean Béliveau. There. You have your Top 5 and we didn’t even break a sweat.)
But back to the epidemic of broken arms. While the billionaires who run this league are busy telling each other what a bunch of swell fellows they are, they might have paused for a moment to consider the fact they’re about to take one of the worst decisions in NHL history: Skipping the Olympic Games. If it’s true, as Gary Bettman said this weekend, that NHL owners spent all of 10 seconds talking about the Olympics, then they’re out of their ever-loving minds.
The league wants you to believe it all comes down to player expenses, which could be as high as $10 million, the annual salary of one bankable star, split 30 ways. Pardon my French, but — horse hockey. If the NHL is really going to make player expenses a deal breaker, the league might as well stay home, because the people who run this show don’t begin to grasp what the Winter Olympics can offer.
Given the NHL’s penchant for bad decisions (Arizona Coyotes, anyone?) this might not be the league’s Worst Decision Ever, but it’s up there. Electing not to go to the Pyeongchang Olympics in 2018 is small-minded, shortsighted, parochial, xenophobic and greedy. (Exactly the kind of thing we’ve come to expect from U.S. billionaires, in other words.)
If Bettman & Co. seriously believe the in-house Toronto Cup of Hockey tournament in September replaces participation in the Olympic Games, they’re bonkers. That silly tournament preached to the converted and even they weren’t paying much attention. But the league would rather save a few million bucks and the inconvenience of an Olympic break while missing out on all the Games have to offer.
Look, there is much to dislike about the IOC in general and the craven Thomas Bach in particular. But the Olympics are the Olympics and the NHL needs the Olympics far more than the Olympics needs the NHL. Never was this more clear than in the summer of 2016. Everything was wrong for Rio until the curtain went up on one of the great spectacles of our times, a reminder of what a potent global force the Olympic movement can be.
The Winter Games will never rival the powerhouse that is the Summer Olympics but, for the winter sports, the Olympic fortnight is the big enchilada. Even in the U.S., people who wouldn’t tune in Game 7 of a Stanley Cup Final between the New York Rangers and the Chicago Blackhawks will watch Olympic hockey simply because it comes attached to the five rings.
The NHL can’t buy what the Olympics have to offer. Global reach, penetration into markets where they wouldn’t know a Sidney Crosby from an offside penalty, a worldwide profile even the Stanley Cup playoffs will never attain.
There is talk the NHL might cherry-pick its Games, skipping Pyeongchang next year, but going to Beijing in 2022 to get a toehold in the vast Chinese market. The IOC can’t allow that. The allimportant television contracts are negotiated on the basis of a known commodity: with or without star players from the NHL. You can’t have it both ways.
The NHL has plenty of other dilemmas that are harder to solve, from bad ice to concussions to replay reviews that settle nothing. The Olympic Games should not be one of those dilemmas.
This is a no-brainer. If you want to broaden your global reach, you go. If you want to remain a niche sport even in the U.S., you stay home.
Personally, I would prefer to see the NHL stay home so the focus can remain on the athletes who devote years of their lives for a shot at the Olympics.
But for hockey fans everywhere and for the league itself, staying home would be a huge mistake — one the NHL, unfortunately, is fully capable of making.
The league would rather save a few million bucks and the inconvenience of an Olympic break while missing out on all the Games have to offer.