Friday, May 6, 2016

An NHL-less Olympics?

Rene Fasel, the President of the International Ice Hockey Federation, said earlier this week that he doesn't expect the NHL to send its players to the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.  We heard this same chatter in the lead-up to the Sochi Games, which eventually did include NHL players.  The issue then was the same as it is now.  Somebody has to cover the players' insurance, and neither side wants to pay for it.

As a part of the negotiations that led to the NHL agreeing to go to Sochi, the IOC and IIHF agreed to pick up much of the tab for the insurance costs, which are actually pretty high.  Evidently, the IOC will no longer contribute to the insurance and travel for the hockey players.  As a result, the IIHF is left with a $10 million gap that it has to fill.  And the NHL, for its part, has come to expect certain provisions for interrupting its season to send its players to the Olympics.  The insurance and travel coverage are two of those provisions.

While I'm sure there's a middle ground that can be reached here, it would almost certainly be a deal-breaker if the NHL and NHLPA had to pick up those costs entirely themselves.  It's also worth noting that the NHL has nothing to gain by sending its players to the Olympics, which partially explains why the IOC and IIHF have been willing to grant such concessions in the past.

All hope is not lost.  But it doesn't look good right now.  Fasel optimistically put it at a 50/50 chance that the NHL players participate in Pyeongchang just as they have at the last five Winter Olympics.  Realistically, though, the number is more like 60 percent they won't and 40 percent they will.  Either way, they have to figure this out sooner rather than later because of the necessary planning.  The NHL has to make the 2017-18 schedule, and knowing whether or not they need to include an Olympic break is obviously an important detail.

Let's not kid ourselves, though.  This wouldn't even be an issue if the Olympics were somewhere else.  With Sochi, we knew there was no chance the NHL players weren't going to be there.  Why?  Because Sochi's in Russia, and Russia's a hockey hotbed.  Korea?  Not so much.  And, while Russia's not exactly convenient for the players based in North America, it's still a lot easier travel-wise (and on your body) to fly to Russia than it is to fly to Korea.  The same goes for 2022, which will also be in the Far East.

The first time the NHL shut the season down for the Olympics, they went to Japan in 1998.  But since then, it's been a back-and-forth between North America and Europe.  Salt Lake City and Vancouver obviously presented no logistical issues, and Torino and Sochi really didn't either.  And at least the trips to Europe were to areas where hockey is popular and many of the players are from.  That's not the case with the two upcoming Olympics in Asia.

Part of the reason the players ended up going to Sochi was because you had a group, led by Alex Ovechkin, who really wanted to go.  Ovechkin wanted to win an Olympic gold medal on home ice.  There are no Korean or Chinese players in the NHL, and their national teams are nowhere near the level of the top nations.  South Korea simply hopes to be competitive in 2018, and China's national team is so weak that there's talk that 2022 might be the first Olympic hockey tournament not to include the host.

If the 2018 and 2022 Olympics were in Sweden or Finland or Canada, we wouldn't be having this discussion.  There wouldn't be any doubt the NHL players would be representing their national teams.  But they don't see the value of shutting down the season to go to Korea or China, although both represent a great opportunity to grow the game beyond the traditional European/North American hotbeds.

I don't think we've heard the last word about this, though.  Because there's one key group that hasn't been considered: the broadcasters.  NBC and CBC are the North American broadcasters that currently have Olympic rights.  They're also the primary networks for NHL coverage.  You think they have any interest in covering a hockey tournament that doesn't include NHL players?  Likewise, if the NHL players aren't at the Olympics, they're stuck in the awkward position of trying to work their regular NHL coverage around their Olympic coverage.  And what about Doc Emirck?  Do you have him cover a second-tier Olympic tournament and not do the NHL?  Or do you have him stick with his regular NHL gig and not have your best hockey play-by-play guy doing the Olympic hockey tournament?

Reaction to the NHL's participation in the Olympics has always been mixed.  From the media to the fans to the executives to the players themselves, some think it's a great idea and some have never been on board.  But everyone can agree that the quality of these tournaments has been first-rate.  And after having NHL-level hockey at the last five Olympics, they can't really go back.  Because it would be a very different tournament, and it might not be one worth watching.

Even the World Championships, which are always held during the Stanley Cup Playoffs and feature players whose teams either didn't make it or were already eliminated, are nowhere near the same quality as the Olympics.  The World Cup of Hockey returns this year for the first time since 2004, so we'll at least have something (although you can't really trust in the regularity of a tournament that had an eight-year gap between the first two editions and now 12 years between the second and third installments).

Both the NHL and NHLPA insist that the World Cup of Hockey isn't meant to "replace" the Olympics for the players.  I sure hope so.  For everyone's sake.  Because you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.  The NHL has proven that it can make it work.  They owe it to everybody to try and do it again.  That way we'll get the Olympic tournament we've come to expect.  And deserve.

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