No Olympics- No Break

[Anybodyhome]

https://media.nhl.com/public/news/15568

NEW YORK (Dec. 22, 2021) – With the National Hockey League’s regular-season schedule having been materially disrupted as a result of increasing COVID cases and a rising number of postponed games, the National Hockey League announced today that NHL Players will not participate in the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.

 

“The National Hockey League respects and admires the desire of NHL Players to represent their countries and participate in a ‘best on best’ tournament. Accordingly, we have waited as long as possible to make this decision while exploring every available option to enable our Players to participate in the 2022 Winter Olympic Games,” NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said. “Unfortunately, given the profound disruption to the NHL’s regular-season schedule caused by recent COVID-related events -- 50 games already have been postponed through Dec. 23 -- Olympic participation is no longer feasible. We certainly acknowledge and appreciate the efforts made by the International Olympic Committee, the International Ice Hockey Federation and the Beijing Organizing Committee to host NHL Players but current circumstances have made it impossible for us to proceed despite everyone’s best efforts. We look forward to Olympic participation in 2026.

 

“Our focus and goal have been and must remain to responsibly and safely complete the entirety of the NHL regular season and Stanley Cup Playoffs in a timely manner. Therefore, with stringent health protocols once again in place, we will begin utilizing available dates during the Feb. 6-22 window (originally contemplated to accommodate Olympic participation) to reschedule games that have been, or may yet be, postponed.”

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Gotta be tough, guys will be watching their countrymen play for medals while they're traveling and/or playing NHL games. I was hoping they'd use the Olympic break to let everyone get healthy and flatten the COVID curve a little, but no. Let's just put 'em out there and try to make up for lost time.

I think this will ultimately hurt the league in the long run with more postponements coming well beyond the Olympics.

 

[Harbingers]

Agreed. If there are a few games here or there they could pick up around the fringes cool. But to try and stuff it all into the Olympic timetable is gonna prove ill sighted.