NHL Annnounces Players Won’t Participate In 2018 Winter Olympics

The NHL made a stunning announcement Monday afternoon: the league revealed that its player would not participate in the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea next February due to the majority of team owners’ opposition to interrupting the regular league season.

NHL players have participated in every Olympics since 1998, and several players have expressed interest in participating in next year’s Games. Some, like New York Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist, took to Twitter to state their disappointment with the league’s decision. Lundqvist lamented the “wasted” chance to “market the game at the biggest stage.”

Two NHL exhibition/preseason games in China, to be held in September, were announced earlier this month. Both games will feature the Vancouver Canucks against the Los Angeles Kings.

Washington Capitals star Alex Ovechkin, for instance, has stated he plans to represent Russia at the 2018 Winter Games no matter what the NHL decided, a defiant move that could spark a battle between the league and players who openly state their opposition to its decisions.

NHL owners have said they are against the idea of shutting down the league’s season even for just a few weeks. They claim that they deserve a portion of the revenue that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) earns from the tournament, and have also cited the injury risk the players could face.

Several major players, like New York Islanders center John Tavares and Detroit Red Wings center Henrik Zetterberg, suffered season-ending injuries at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

“The league isn’t anti-Olympics,” N.H.L. Commissioner Gary Bettman told Chicago business leaders last month. “We’ve been to five of them. The problem is the clubs are anti-disruption to the season. To disappear for almost three weeks in February when there’s no football, no baseball, there’s only basketball and us. To do it where there’s no programming for the NHL Network, for NHL.com, for all of our social media platforms — we just disappear.”

The NBA is the only other major sports league whose players participate in the Olympics, although the Summer Games coincide with the league’s offseason.

The N.H.L.’s statement on Monday ended with “We now consider the matter officially closed,” but it remains to be seen whether the decision is, in fact, final. Negotiations for the 2014 Sochi Olympics stalled four years ago, but an agreement was reached on July 19, 2013, less than seven months before the opening ceremony.

The NHL also said in its statement that the IOC has expressed that the league’s participation in the 2022 Beijing Games is dependent on players’ participation in the 2018 Games. Should the NHL also refuse to send its players to China for the 2022 Games, they would again miss out on a highly untapped and profitable market.

In its statement, the N.H.L. said it had been open to hearing from the I.O.C., the International Ice Hockey Federation and the N.H.L. Players’ Association on ways to make Olympic participation more attractive to the team owners.

The IOC, which had previously paid travel and insurance expenses for NHL players, has declined to do so for the 2018 Olympics. The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) decided to take on those costs, although the NHL was unhappy with this.

NEW YORK, NY – MAY 03: Josh Bailey #12 of the New York Islanders (l) celebrates his second goal of the game against the Tampa Bay Lightning at 2:27 of the third period on the powerplay in Game Three of the Eastern Conference Second Round during the 2016 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at the Barclays Center on May 03, 2016 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

Article by Pablo Mena