It appears that NHL involvement in the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea is highly unlikely. It was just recently announced that the city of Toronto will host the World Cup of Hockey in 2016. With that being said, the question arises: Does this mean the NHL removes itself from Olympic involvement or does this have nothing to do with it?
The World Cup of Hockey began in 1996 and the United States won the Cup. The last event was the only other World Cup of Hockey event, in which Canada won. As we saw, the NHL was worried about sending its players to Russia for the 2014 winter games due to terrorist threats. Although there are no terrorist threats for the 2018 games, North and South Korea haven’t exactly gotten along all that well. The NHL may be worried about player safety for a number of reasons. But then again, there’s a chance that player safety isn’t a concern for the NHL. Maybe they want to distance themselves from the games for a different reason. I think personally they’d like to distance themselves to give the younger players a shot at making a name for themselves on an international level. I know the World Juniors tournament is supposed to do that job but some don’t consider it a big stage like they do the Olympics. Maybe the NHL just wants to give the World Cup of Hockey one last hurrah before it’s never seen again. The NHL is the only entity that knows.
Now let’s look on the flip side of things. The NHL could very well still have intentions of being involved in the 2018 games. Maybe the NHL thinks the fans want that international competition they crave earlier. Maybe the NHL wants to bring this World Cup idea back because of the hype from the World Baseball Classic in 2013. I could sit here and give out all the maybes I have but the truth is the only people who know the truth behind this is the NHLPA and Gary Bettman. The NHLers seemed to have enjoyed playing in the Winter Olympics. The question remains, however, will they get to continue to enjoy playing there or will they have to find other international competitions to enjoy?
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