Jackets impacted by Olympic decision
Prior to the Blue Jackets' training camp this season, Oliver Bjorkstrand and Alexandre Texier represented their countries during Olympic qualifying tournaments in Norway and Latvia.
Texier felt the sting of defeat in France's loss to Latvia in the championship game of that bracket, while Bjorkstrand experienced elation by helping Denmark advance to its first Olympic competition in 75 years.
“That was awesome,” Bjorkstrand said in September.
If Bjorkstrand's excitement level has dropped, it's understandable.
He won't compete for Denmark in February at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, and no other NHL players will compete for their countries. The NHL announced Wednesday that it was invoking its right to ban players from Olympic competition because of an ongoing COVID-19 outbreak.
“The National Hockey League respects and admires the desire of NHL Players to represent their countries
and participate in a ‘best on best’ tournament,” commissioner Gary Bettman said in a statement. “Unfortunately, given the profound disruption to the NHL’S regular-season schedule caused by recent Covid-related events — 50 games already have been postponed through Dec. 23 — Olympic participation is no longer feasible.”
The league will instead begin reworking its regular-season schedule to include makeup dates for postponed games, focusing on allowing each team to play a full 82-game schedule for the first time since 2018-19.
A built-in period of three weeks spanning Feb. 6-22 will be utilized to accommodate those games, and teams unaffected by postponements will have some of their remaining games shifted into that timeframe. The goal is to give all 32 teams a balanced schedule for the rest of the season while working around events such as concerts scheduled at NHL arenas in what was supposed to be a three-week break from hockey in February.
The Olympic news affects the Blue
Jackets in a couple of ways.
Only one of their three postponed games was scheduled to be held at Nationwide Arena — a Thursday matchup against the Buffalo Sabres — so finding an available makeup date in February shouldn’t be difficult.
The arena is scheduled to host the final night of “Disney on Ice” Feb. 6 and has three concerts slated for Feb. 7 (Ghost and Volbeat), Feb. 12 (Ohio Valentine’s Love Affair) and Feb. 18 (Tomlin and United). That leaves Feb. 8-11, Feb. 13-17 and Feb. 19-23 before the next concert Feb. 24 (Dierks Bentley).
More difficult for the Jackets to swallow is that up to nine players and general manager Jarmo Kekalainen will not be representing seven different countries in the 12-team Olympic field.
Kekalainen was an assistant GM for Finland and might’ve lobbied for two Blue Jackets players, forward Patrik Laine and goalie Joonas Korpisalo, to go with him to Bejing. Other Blue Jackets who could’ve gone include Bjorkstrand (Denmark), defenseman Zach Werenski (U.S.), Gregory Hofmann (Switzerland), goalie Elvis Merzlikins (Latvia), forward Jakub Voracek (Czech Republic), defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov (Russia) and forward Gustav Nyquist (Sweden).
Bjorkstrand was eagerly awaiting possible Olympic matchups in pool play against Hofmann, Voracek and Gavrikov.
“I grew up watching the Olympics, mostly Canada-usa battles,” he said in September. “Just to be a part of it … I mean, we know if we meet a big nation, it’s going to take a miracle. But miracles have happened.”
Miracles will again have to wait for the NHL, which hasn’t participated in the Olympics since 2014. bhedger@dispatch.com @Brianhedger