Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet: The NHL released a statement today saying they won’t be participating in the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.
“We have previously made clear that, while the overwhelming majority of our Clubs are adamantly opposed to disrupting the 2017-18 NHL season for purposes of accommodating Olympic participation by some NHL players, we were open to hearing from any of the other parties who might have an interest in the issue (e.g., the IOC, the IIHF, the NHLPA) as to reasons the Board of Governors might be interested in re-evaluating their strongly held views on the subject. A number of months have now passed and no meaningful dialogue has materialized. Instead, the IOC has now expressed the position that the NHL’s participation in Beijing in 2022 is conditioned on our participation in South Korea in 2018.
And the NHLPA has now publicly confirmed that it has no interest or intention of engaging in any discussion that might make Olympic participation more attractive to the Clubs. As a result, and in an effort to create clarity among conflicting reports and erroneous speculation, this will confirm our intention to proceed with finalizing our 2017-18 Regular Season schedule without any break to accommodate the Olympic Winter Games. We now consider the matter officially closed.”
The NHL has been sending players to the Olympics since 1998 in Nagano.
The IOC makes money on the hockey, and the NHL felt the IOC should pay the players insurance and travel costs, which totaled about $14 million for Vancouver. The IOC wouldn’t cover the costs.
The NHL wanted to named an Olympic supplier/sponsor according to John Shannon so they could market it, but the IOC rejected.
Sources saying the NHL recently tried to get some get some TV rights/sponsorship but where unsuccessful on that as well.
Chris Johsnton: “I’m told the NHL has directed teams not to discuss possibility of individual OLY participation with their players. League will rule later.”
Stephen Whyno: “NHL has not yet decided whether to allow teams to give players permission to go to Korea on case-by-case basis. I.E. Ovechkin”