Lots of reasons for NHL to skip Olympics
A decade has now passed since Dominik Hasek’s infamous adductor injury at the 2006 Olympics, an ailment that might well have cost the Ottawa Senators their best chance of winning a Stanley Cup.
“Maybe Friday,” Hasek’s oft-repeated line about a potential return to the lineup, ultimately became a sad punch line to his unfulfilled stint in Ottawa.
We also can’t forget the words of New York Islanders GM Garth Snow — “Are the IIHF or IOC going to reimburse our season ticket holders now?” — after John Tavares ripped up his knee at the 2014 Olympics and lost the rest of his season.
Canada’s consecutive gold medals aside, the above stories serve as compelling arguments for the NHL to skate away from the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Would it really be the end of the world if NHL players opted not to go half a world away to showcase themselves?
Perhaps NHL commissioner Gary Bettman was merely negotiating publicly Monday, proclaiming that the league’s owners wouldn’t foot the million-dollar insurance bill for his players to return to the Olympics. That cost was previously covered by the International Olympic Committee and the International Ice Hockey Federation.
Beyond that, though, there are other economic and logistical reasons to question the NHL’s ongoing commitment to the event.
In case you missed the marketing campaign of additional roster announcements last week, the World Cup of Hockey is coming back in September after a 12-year absence.
Do we need the Olympics when we already have a best-on-best, country-versus-country format in place? (Let’s face it, the under-23 North American squad and that odd compilation of players from “other” European nations will provide more intrigue than a hockey power playing a mere happy-to-behere hockey nation).
The big bonus for the NHL, of course, is that the World Cup proceeds stay in-house, split between the league and players, driving up revenues. (On that front, be prepared to see Euro-style ads on the jerseys: Tim Hortons versus Enterprise Car Rental, anyone?).
Additionally, when the NHL interrupts its season to take part in the Olympics, the annual corporate schmoozefest of the all-star game goes out the window — draining more potential revenues from the league.
On top of the economic losses and injury concerns from Olympic participation, NHL teams must also consider fatigue. Pyeongchang is 13 hours removed from the Eastern Standard Time. How long would it take NHL players to readjust their body clocks?
There’s already evidence of a postOlympic letdown. A 2014 study by University of Massachusetts professor Neil Longley revealed that NHL teams overloaded with Olympians suffered a significant drop in performance after the Games.
As teams increasingly turn to analytics experts, searching for winning statistical models, the number crunchers should be poring over the relative value of Olympic participation.
From a more traditional “amateur” Olympic perspective, I’ve always felt a tad sorry for the Olympic skiers, skaters, lugers and women’s hockey players, believing they get upstaged from their shining moments when the NHLers take over the spotlight.
Would the inevitable gold-medal women’s hockey game between Canada and the United States in 2018 become a bigger event if NHL players weren’t at the Olympics? Women’s hockey was introduced to the Games in 1998, the same year NHLers made their debut.
While there’s no sign of NBA players dribbling away from Olympic participation — which doesn’t interrupt the NBA season — the soccer world has adopted an intriguing approach. Olympic men’s soccer teams use an under-23 model — with three over-age players allowed — which limits the number of superstar professionals.
Admittedly, figuring out a new hockey eligibility requirement would be no easy task.
Would NHL teams be willing to “lend” their minor-league prospects to Olympic teams? Would younger — or older — European pros stay at home to represent their countries at an Olympics?
Once upon a time, Canada owned a “national” team, which played in international tournaments, including the 1994 Olympics.
That odd collection of players included Paul Kariya, Wally Schreiber, Chris Kontos and Petr Nedved, the former Czech junior star who became a Canadian citizen and joined Canada’s national team during a contract dispute with Vancouver.
The 1994 Olympics provided a signature moment in hockey history when Peter Forsberg put his stamp on Sweden’s Olympic gold medal win over Canada. Forsberg scored the shootout winner, sliding the puck behind Corey Hirsch with his infamous deke, a move that was later pictured on Swedish stamps.
At that time, Bettman was only one year into his NHL tenure. If he has his way now, the NHL could be going back to the future, staying away from the Olympics altogether.