Winners and Losers From No NHL Olympic Participation
What has been floating around the rumour mill for weeks seem to finally have been put to bed as the NHL and NHLPA have reportedly reached an agreement that will see the Toronto Maple Leafs and other NHL players skip the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
The NHL Made it official yesterday. While this is probably good news for the Toronto Maple Leafs, there are others who won’t be so happy.
In the past few days many of the game’s biggest stars publicly voiced an opinion on the Olympics – which, if you pay attention to enough hockey interviews, is a rarity in of itself.
Just last week Connor McDavid mentioned that the potential three to five week quarantine period in China was “unsettling” but still kept himself in the running for participation, if it were to happen.
Sean O’Leary of TheScore wrote about how Sidney Crosby was “bummed his chances of representing his country at the Olympics for a third time appear to be dwindling”.
This comes as the NHL has hit a mini pause on the season as Omicron has swept through the United States and Canada and a number of teams, the Toronto Maple Leafs included, have lengthy COVID absentee lists.
While it is hardly a surprise considering the rising COVID case numbers and the new Omicron variant, it is still a massive blow for a number of people and industries. However it is not all bad news for parties involved. Here are the Winners and Losers from the NHL deciding to not send players for the Winter Games.
Winner: Gary Bettman
Everybody hates Gary Bettman. He doesn’t care. Or at least he doesn’t show it, but boy oh boy is he happy right about now. The referee of the NHL, Bettman has always wanted the NHL and the Stanley Cup to take precedent over everything else.
Commissioner Bettman is roundly booed every time he appears anywhere near hockey related activities and while he can talk of wanting to grow the game, he knows where his heart lies.
If the NHL players left to go to the Olympics not only would it put the season hold for two weeks but it could have a severe impact on hockey when the players returned.
Injuries have always been the biggest risk for the NHL where the Olympics are concerned and the prospect of an NHL superstar getting injured in what Bettman would likely consider an extra-credit assignment, is nauseating for the 69 year old.
Losing a player to injury, or quite possibly in this case to a five-week COVID quarantine in China, massively dilutes the spectacle Bettman is trying to host in North America. Furthermore Bettman is having to deal with some NHL arenas dropping to 50% capacity, and some back to zero attendance.
No NHL involvement in the Olympics will be welcome news for Bettman, not matter what he says publicly. Finally, a ray of light shines into his mountain top lair.
Loser: Older Players
Hockey players zero in on the Stanley Cup from a young age, but make no mistake about it, the Olympics are a very special event, and one that cannot be understated.
Now the rights to images of Olympic events are very restricted, so while you can gaze at Toronto Maple Leafs player Michael Bunting, technically the above photo is from the 2021 IIHF World Championship.
The point here however, is the sweater that he is wearing. Pulling on your country’s jersey and representing them on the ice is a massive privilege and not one that any professional athlete takes lightly.
For some, like Auston Matthews, Connor McDavid and Mitch Marner there will be another Olympics and they will all still be in the primes of their careers. There is nothing to worry about, it is disappointing to miss this one, but there will be more.
For others, like Team Canada Golden Goal Hero Sidney Crosby, this news is quite possibly heartbreaking. Crosby is just one of many elder statesmen in the Team Canada set-up that likely won’t have another shot at going to the Olympics.
Drew Doughty, Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron and possibly even Carey Price are all players that would have been on the plane. Doughty is the youngest of the four, but at 32, it’s impossible to know how or what his game will be like, if he is still playing, at 36. The worst part is, they have seen this opportunity evaporate through no fault of their own.
Winner: NHL Teams
This one is not hard to understand. No NHL team wants a two-week disruption in the push towards the trade deadline and the playoffs. No NHL team wants to risk losing their superstar to an injury or to a lengthy spell in quarantine.
These organizations are all hell bent on success and the greatest chance they have of being successful is to hunker down as a team and find a way to win the Stanley Cup. You don’t get that with disruptions and uncertainty.
There is room to argue that teams and players could have a positive bump coming back from a successful Olympic campaign but the risk far outweighs the rewards for the NHL teams.
For now, almost all NHL teams have someone in COVID protocol and even a mini break in the season isn’t going to help that too much. Adding into that stress the hassle of sending off your best players to Beijing is not something any GM or President would want to do.
In other Olympic times sure, the stress might not be there, but this 2022 version of the Games is wholly different to any others thanks in no small part to the country it is being held in as well as the rapidly rising case numbers.
No Olympic participation is just one less thing to rock the boat.
Loser: The Fans
Seeing NHL players at the Olympics is awesome for fans of the game of hockey. You are seeing the players who will likely never play with each other in the NHL skating on the same line in your country’s jersey. It is a sight to behold.
Who would have thought that a line of Marchand – Crosby – Bergeron would be one of the best the Olympics has seen. What about the speed and vision of a line of Nathan Mackinnon – Connor McDavid – Mitch Marner? The potential of seeing Alexander Ovechkin teamed up with Evegni Malkin and Nikita Kucherov all in a Russia jerseys on one line is tantalizing.
No NHL participation robs the fans of just that. The hockey at the 2018 Sochi Games was so far removed from the spectacle at the 2014 or 2010 Games. The players aren’t at the same level and the fans are the ones that suffer.
Quite frankly, I barely remember the 2018 hockey at all, but I can tell you where I was sitting in my house in England in 2010 when Crosby scored in the final.
That’s the difference.
As a secondary loser, but still fitting for this slide, the rest of the Olympic events are losers in this too. Some of you may be Olympic diehards and watch whatever is on whenever it is on, but there are undoubtedly a number of fans who just tune in for the hockey.
If they tune in a bit before the game they will see coverage of a different event – speed skating, luge, snowboard cross, freestyle skiing moguls, the list goes on but no NHL participation could conceivably amount to a reduction in watch time and then everybody loses.
Loser: The Game of Hockey
The Game of Hockey being a loser in this scenario is harder to quantify, but it should not be understated and perhaps this is the only sore point for Bettman as he broods in his lair.
The NHL has been trying to crack new markets for quite some time now. Yes, the league is expanding and there are rumours that another NHL Franchise could be on the cards in the near future.
However there are only so many cities in North America and there will be a case for no more expansions at a point, and relocations come into the picture. The NHL has yet to cross that bridge and so for now they are focusing on growing the game elsewhere.
It is not easy to grow a game that few have access to, and even fewer have the chance and ability to play. The Scandinavian nations love hockey but are deeply invested in their own professional leagues, while the KHL has the same hold over Russia.
The NHL has the best hockey players and the NHL brass has always seen the Olympics as a useful tool to launch their game into the homes of people who may not think about hockey too much.
There will still be hockey at the Olympics, but it is no longer the same viable talking point for the NHL and that hurts hockey overall.
You always want to put your best foot forward when promoting a product, but with no NHL participation that foot is staying firmly in North America. The spectacle is greatly diminished.
Loser: The All Star Game
There are of course more losers than winners in all of this, and one that might have skated under the radar, but is still a loser is the All Star Game.
Due to be played in Las Vegas, the All Star Weekend has always been a fantastic event for the non-diehard hockey fan. The actual All Star games have rarely been interesting for any of the serious fans, but the skills competition is regularly a hit.
Yet with no NHL participation for the Olympics with the rising COVID cases a source of concern and the quarantine fallout that follows, how can the NHL justify hosting a game where 40 or so different players from all over the continent converge on one place.
It makes no sense, and the potential for that to be super-spreader event is not something to be ignored.
A major loser in this is the NHL, but more so is ESPN who have just wrestled the rights to hockey and the All Star Game back. This was their time to put on a show and draw viewers to their channel but how can it be justified?
ESPN will not want to lose that balloon of revenue yet the league is experiencing a massive issue with COVID absences. So much so that people are starting to call into question the sporting integrity of the game that is being played. At what point does it become uneven and unfair?
The New York Islanders were forced to play when severely depleted due to COVID and it was barely an even fight. The Toronto Maple Leafs, Florida Panthers and many more are all without several crucial players.
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The risk of flying in players from every hockey city becomes far more tricky to justify when the Olympic involvement has reportedly been cancelled for the same types of issues.