NHL Network: Elliotte Friedman on getting back to some International tournaments involving the NHL players.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Jamison Coyle: “Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said last week that the NHL wants to have regular participation in International tournaments. Everybody wants that. How close are we to this becoming a reality?”
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Friedman: “Well, you guys gave me some homework to do some work on this. I don’t like homework in August. Ontario’s one of the places where school doesn’t start until Labour Day, so I really didn’t enjoy this today, I’ll have to tell you.
I made a few calls on this and I think, look, there’s definitely an understanding that the Olympics, we have to get back there. The players want it. I think everybody understands from a pure visibility point of view, it needs to happen and I think everybody wants that to happen in 2026.
What is being discussed is what can happen before that and the target zone is February 2025. Obviously, you know there was some talk about a World Cup. I don’t think that’s necessarily going to happen. I’m not sure, convinced yet it’s going to be a World Cup. The situation with Russian is still a major concern for a lot of the countries, especially the ones in Europe.
So I think what they’re talking about is what can they do in February 2025 that is unique, is exciting, and it gets the best players from all around playing against each other. And I think what we might be talking about here, I think it’s more likely than not, it’s somewhere in North America at that time. I think there’s some hope from some people it could be in Europe, though I don’t know how possible that is.
I think it’s going to involve NHL players from different countries. They’re trying to think of something creative and unique that they could set up in February 2025.
But the one thing Jamison I really noticed and just in my conversations was, there’s a realization that we have to get back to best-on-best. The sport needs it from an International point of view and the players crave it. And I think everybody sees that.