NHLPA rejects Olympic proposal

The latest twist in the path to NHL participation in the next Olympics has hit a dead end.

The NHL Players’ Association formally rejected the league’s proposal to allow players to participate in the 2018 Olympics in South Korea in exchange for an extension to the current collective agreement.

NHLPA executive director Don Fehr said the players, primarily the executive board, showed no interest in the idea.

“So hopefully we’ll still be able to conclude an agreement to go to the Olympics,” Fehr told The Canadian Press in an exclusive interview. “We still think it’s important and we’ll go from there.”

The NHL proposed the idea in the course of discussions last month.

Under the plan, the NHL would green light participation in the Pyeongchang Games if the players agree to extend the current contract by three years and eliminate a potential opt-out clause in the fall of 2019. Had the players agreed, the CBA would have been extended to 2025, transforming it from an eight-year pact with an opt-out option to 10 years with three added on top of that.

The conversation among players was “very, very short,” Fehr said.

There was no appetite to extend the agreement for nine more seasons (including this one) — effectively the career lifespan of most players in the league today. There were elements of the current deal, he noted, that the union wanted to examine further before bargaining, including the escrow system.

“You’ve got to understand,” Fehr said. “For us to get into bargaining, you have to go back to the players and you’ve got to do the basic things. ‘Here’s all the basic provisions of the agreement. Here’s what happened since the last time. This is what might need to be changed or modified.’

“Then you have to discuss (that) with the players,” he continued. “You’ve got to figure out what they want. Then you would have to enter into discussions (with the league) and see if there was anything there.”

To go through that exhaustive process in a matter of weeks with only a trip to the Olympics in return was not realistic.

League officials did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

NHL players have participated in the last five Olympics and still hope to return in 2018. Concerns have bubbled this time around, partly as a result of policy changes under International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach. He has been resistant to continuing to fund (along with the International Ice Hockey Federation) out-of-pocket payments for NHL players (insurance, travel, accommodation primarily) to attend the Games.

The IOC and IIHF have covered these costs — upwards of $10 million U.S. according to NHL commissioner Gary Bettman — since 1998 when the NHL first began participating in the Games. Bach recently told the Olympic channel that “it is in the interest of both (the IIHF and NHL) and also of the IOC to have the best players at the Olympic Games” noting that “all the rational arguments are speaking in favour of participation.”

The NHL board of governors will meet next week in Florida where it’s expected that Olympic participation will garner considerable discussion.