The Winter Olympics are truly a sight to behold.
Much like the Summer Olympics, international sports legends from all around the world travel to one location in the ultimate competition of global athleticism. Now everyone has their own preference, and personally I find the Winter Olympics to be more entertaining. Factoring in the extreme cold these athletes have to deal with (both indoors and out, ice indoors doesn’t exactly stay cool on its own), coupled with the sheer beauty found within the fluid motions of slalom skiers and speed skaters, not to mention the extreme danger one small mistake could put the athletes in (I mean we’ve all seen cringe-worthy ski crashes right?) makes the Winter Olympics the ultimate combination of national pride, athletic competition, extreme beauty, and death-defying danger. However, one cannot forget that the thing driving these extremely talented athletes is a sense of overwhelming nationalism. To take a globally observed stage knowing that you are representing an entire nation is a feeling that cannot be described accurately by anyone that hasn’t felt it.
The choice to represent your country, as long as you have the talent and skill to do so, should be yours and yours alone to make. Olympic hockey is held at a much higher standard than the World Cup of Hockey (although they are equally entertaining to watch) and yet the NHL’s constant inability to make a decision on whether or not they are going to allow players the opportunity to play in the Winter Olympics infuriates me to no end. Gary Bettman, commissioner of the National Hockey League, when discussing whether or not the League is going to allow players to compete in the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang has discussed the business climate in Beijing (as China will be the host of the Winter Olympics in 2022) and whether or not the League can see potential for expanding a fan/customer base that far away.
Of course the biggest question is, in my opinion, why in the world does the NHL’s inability to find success in western markets a factor on whether or not players will be allowed to participate in the Games? The difference it makes for the NHL is in the number of games in a season the NHL could have, and whether or not the NHL believes it could have an All-Star Break and an Olympic Break (which would of course be absurd and they would definitely have to dock games, detracting from a full 82 game season). But of course, if the NHL were to dock games from their season so that players could compete in games organized by another corporation (Olympic and international ice hockey tournaments are organized and ran by the IIHF, or International Ice Hockey Federation), the NHL would essentially be letting players take paid vacations to play games and earn money for another organization. Especially stressful for the NHL considering the IIHF does not pay players a single cent for playing and any additional money the players would earn would come from their home countries various international sports committees.
The discussion the NHL is failing to have with the players is how important is representing their country to them? The NHL is, like every other sports league, a business. Of course, as a business, the NHL isn’t going to like letting their employees go help another hockey league earn a good amount of money (and I mean a good amount, look at how much money it takes to buy Team USA replica jerseys) for nothing while simultaneously taking a small hit to their general income as well. However, fearing setting a precedent for the 2022 Olympics because of an unstable Chinese hockey market is no reason to drag your feet on deciding whether or not to allow players to play in 2018. While I may not know much about the climate of hockey in Asia, I do know that for hockey to get any attention on a stage anywhere but North America excites the massive European hockey market to no end, and to deny the Global hockey market the opportunity to see literally the best players in the world take up their country’s colors and play their sport for the world to see simply based on greed and speculations of a hockey market that could look completely different in 6 years is downright absurd.
The NHL is literally incapable of making an unbiased decision in this matter, and I firmly believe that the decision to allow NHL players to play in the Winter Olympics should be that of the IIHF and the players themselves.
