USA TODAY International Edition
Meeting crucial to NHL role in Olympics
League remains uncertain on 2018
NHL officials think the reality of Olympic participation has never lived up to the romance of the idea.
After taking five trips to the Winter Olympics since 1998, the league has tepid enthusiasm, at best, for committing to Pyeong-Chang, South Korea, for the 2018 Games. When the International Olympic Committee decreed that the NHL would have to pay transportation and insurance costs to send players, the league was ready to pull the plug on its Olympic presence.
That’s why Wednesday’s scheduled meeting in New York between NHL officials, the International Ice Hockey Federation, USA Hockey, Hockey Canada and the NHL Players’ Association could be viewed as the last chance to save the NHL relationship with the Olympics.
No decision is expected to be reached until early January, but this meeting will offer insight into whether there should be any optimism.
IIHF President Rene Fasel is expected to offer a financial plan to offset costs of sending NHL players, according to a person with knowledge of the meeting. The person requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation. But it is unknown whether his plan is enough to bring the NHL back on board.
The NHL doesn’t like the precedent of the IOC gaining the benefit of league participation without incurring any cost.
More important, some owners have grown weary of participation because of the disruption it causes. In 2014, the NHL shut down Feb. 9- 24 for the Sochi Games. The NHL has hard evidence showing that shutting down the league in midseason causes financial stress in some markets. Fans can quickly grow out of the habit of attending games.
Fear of major injuries is also a concern. Every player at the Olympics is critical to his NHL team. In a parity league, an injury can be the difference between making or missing the playoffs. Failing to advance to the postseason can cost a franchise millions of dollars in lost revenue.
Originally, the NHL viewed Olympic participation as missionary work to grow the sport. The NHL believed putting its athletes on the Olympic stage was worth the hardship. But that perceived worldwide marketing gain is impossible to quantify. Has the league grown since 1998 because of Olympic participation? No one can answer that with any degree of certainty.
What we do know is that NHL players are bullish about playing at the Olympics, and that is the best hope for making it happen. The NHL’s relationship with the NHLPA seems to have become less contentious since the last collective bargaining agreement was negotiated. If the players push hard enough, it’s hard to imagine the league declaring war over this issue.
While it might be hard to quantify the league’s benefit, clearly there is one. The World Cup of Hockey can become a major event, but it is not going to grow as large as the Olympics.
Olympic participation is like product placement for the NHL, a chance for the league to place its talented athletes in front of people who don’t know who they are. When you consider the worldwide attention hockey gets during the Olympics, it seems the reasons for going still outweigh the reasons for not going.