[News] NHL will not participate in 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.

[dissentowner]

As I and many others predicted the IIHF will not allow NHL players under contract to participate in upcoming games. Ovi had to suck it up.
http://www.tsn.ca/ovechkin-releases-...mpics-1.857171

[dissentowner]

Originally Posted by FBI

I smell a pubes bet between you guys!

I should have made this bet lol.

[pseudoreality]

2022 will be interesting. It looks like everyone wants to go, but everyone is going to want someone a bluff saying they don't really want to go.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by pseudoreality

2022 will be interesting. It looks like everyone wants to go, but everyone is going to want someone a bluff saying they don't really want to go.

The IOC won't negotiate. You can't pick and choose when you want to go. You thought the NHL had big egos.

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

The IOC won't negotiate. You can't pick and choose when you want to go. You thought the NHL had big egos.

NHL will likely pay the charters and insurance though to get the exposure in China. They don't care about Korea.

[killer_carlson]

You may well be right. Tretiak's comments are very clear.

But i'll still believe it when I see it. i'll wait until the first Russian Olympic game.

[dino7c]

if the players wanted to go they could have extended the CBA

now we get no Olympics and a lockout, where they will lose again

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by dino7c

if the players wanted to go they could have extended the CBA

now we get no Olympics and a lockout, where they will lose again

Yes and if the owners wanted to extend the CBA or avoid a work stoppage they could just let the players play in the Olympics and get rid of the escrow.

This argument can go both ways, the problem is it's not as simple as that.

[CroFlames]

Keep staging a WC every four years and it'll become the prestigious tournament that the Olympics were from 1998 to 2014.

Can we stop pretending the Olympics have always been the uber-ultimate hockey tournament? Pre-1998, it was just another hockey tournament.

I love how the Olympics showcases sports where athletes aren't necessarily gazillionaires and we get to see a wide range of competitions. Hockey should obviously be included, but it should be the best junior players and not NHLers (unless their NHL club releases them like they do for the WJC from time to time).

Everyone has fond memories of the Summit Series and Canada Cups. The World Cup can and should be the continuation of those tournaments with a proper qualifying cycle and rotating hosts. It will quickly become the most prestigious best on best tournament of international hockey.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

Keep staging a WC every four years and it'll become the prestigious tournament that the Olympics were from 1998 to 2014.

Can we stop pretending the Olympics have always been the uber-ultimate hockey tournament? Pre-1998, it was just another hockey tournament.

I love how the Olympics showcases sports where athletes aren't necessarily gazillionaires and we get to see a wide range of competitions. Hockey should obviously be included, but it should be the best junior players and not NHLers (unless their NHL club releases them like they do for the WJC from time to time).

Everyone has fond memories of the Summit Series and Canada Cups. The World Cup can and should be the continuation of those tournaments with a proper qualifying cycle and rotating hosts. It will quickly become the most prestigious best on best tournament of international hockey.

The WC was too gimmicky IMO. Tough to really establish rivalries in that tournament when players can actually end up playing for different teams in different tournament years.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

Yes and if the owners wanted to extend the CBA or avoid a work stoppage they could just let the players play in the Olympics and get rid of the escrow.

Escrow is a mandatory part of the current CBA. You can extend the CBA or get rid of escrow. Not both. And without escrow, the linkage between revenue and player salaries disappears – which the owners sacrificed a year's business to get in the first place. They're not going to give that up for nothing.

The owners have no incentive at all to let the players go to the Olympics, especially if the NHL will be on the hook for insurance costs.

[GreenLantern2814]

Here's what I think will happen. I think the players love the Olympics. The stars love to play in the tournament, and the rank and file love the two weeks off in the dead of winter to escape the spotlight.

My thinking here is, they'll sell the rookies down the river to get the Olympics. 4 year ELCs in exchange for Olympic participation. The only reason they're not going this time is so they can collectively bargain it in three years.

As an aside, I'd still like to see a Team World vs Team Canada 7-game series. No one country is able to match Canada at this point - I'd like to see this group given a proper challenge.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

Escrow is a mandatory part of the current CBA. You can extend the CBA or get rid of escrow. Not both. And without escrow, the linkage between revenue and player salaries disappears – which the owners sacrificed a year's business to get in the first place. They're not going to give that up for nothing.

Olympic participation isn't a mandatory part of the current CBA either, so in order for the league to make the offer of Olympic participation in exchange for an extension, they would need to make an offer to amend and extend the current agreement, which is what they did. It's the same concept as the players offering Olympic participation and removal of escrow as a way to extend the CBA without a labour dispute. Escrow does not remove linkage between revenue and the players' salaries, it just shifts who suffers the financial burden in the event of a revenue shortfall.

The owners have no incentive at all to let the players go to the Olympics, especially if the NHL will be on the hook for insurance costs.

That's debatable. Olympics hosted in inconvenient time zones by countries with a small population I can agree have very little benefit to the league, but even the owners would concede that Olympic tournaments hosted in NA help market the NHL in the US.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

Escrow does not remove linkage between revenue and the players' salaries, it just shifts who suffers the financial burden in the event of a revenue shortfall.

With escrow, the players receive 50 percent of hockey-related revenue. Without it, the players would have received more than their stipulated percentage in every single year of this CBA and the 2005 CBA.

There has never been any revenue shortfall. There are two reasons why escrow is an issue:

1. The salary-cap range was based on a flawed assumption – that most teams would spend to the middle of the range. Instead, most teams spend as close to the cap as possible, since they all want to be competitive. This means they are collectively overspending compared to the players' share of revenue.

2. Rather than let the cap level off and restore some balance between the cap and the players' contracted salaries, the NHLPA has always insisted on using the cap escalator to inflate nominal salaries further – even though the extra percentage will be clawed back in escrow.

[dino7c]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

Yes and if the owners wanted to extend the CBA or avoid a work stoppage they could just let the players play in the Olympics and get rid of the escrow.

This argument can go both ways, the problem is it's not as simple as that.

Owners, who own these teams as a hobby will always win against guys who depend on playing a kids game for a living. Not saying what's right or wrong just telling it like it is. At the end of the day they get no Olympics and a lockout they will lose and never recoup the money.

Smrt

[Party Elephant]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

Can we stop pretending the Olympics have always been the uber-ultimate hockey tournament? Pre-1998, it was just another hockey tournament.

Come on man. I'm nearly 30 (same age as Crosby, Toews, etc) and the olympics are the only top level international hockey I've ever known. 1994 was a really long time ago.

[FireGilbert]

Originally Posted by Party Elephant

Come on man. I'm nearly 30 (same age as Crosby, Toews, etc) and the olympics are the only top level international hockey I've ever known. 1994 was a really long time ago.

I have seen 9 best on best tournaments: 5 Olympics, 3 World Cups, and the World Championship during the lockout. Of those the ones I recall as amazing were all the Olympics and the 1996 cup.

While I'm willing to give a World Cup another chance and it may one day grow into something, when I think of elite best on best hockey I think of the Olympics.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by dissentowner

As I and many others predicted the IIHF will not allow NHL players under contract to participate in upcoming games. Ovi had to suck it up.
http://www.tsn.ca/ovechkin-releases-...mpics-1.857171

Just can't stand him and Vlasic and friends going on about how mean and unfair the NHL has been. Now it's the IOC and IIHF to. But of course no mention of the players.

They could have fought for it in the CBA, they could have received permission to go if they would have extended the CBA. They didn't, as was their right, but the players have to realize this is just as much on the NHLPA as it is on everyone else.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by FireGilbert

I have seen 9 best on best tournaments: 5 Olympics, 3 World Cups, and the World Championship during the lockout. Of those the ones I recall as amazing were all the Olympics and the 1996 cup.

While I'm willing to give a World Cup another chance and it may one day grow into something, when I think of elite best on best hockey I think of the Olympics.

You do today, yes. But if the NHL sponsors a 2020 and 2024 World Cup while the 2022 and 2026 Olympics remain the domain of the leftovers, that perspective will change very quickly.

The very same perspective change happened in 1998 and 2002 when the Olympic tournament went from little heralded joke to best-on-best.

[spuzzum]

https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/spo...beandmail.com&

https://www.nhl.com/news/olympic-fin...years/c-519476

https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/spo...beandmail.com&

The numbers and statistics speak for themselves. 16.6 million Canadians waking up to watch the gold medal game in Sochi in the middle of the night. The World Cup of Hockey had 3.3 and 2.1 million viewers for the semi and final games in prime time.

I am still gutted the NHL is not going to Korea. It is the tournament the NHL beefed up every four years and was THE hockey tournament. When an entire country stops and spends three hours watching an ice hockey game, that tells you something.

Yes the World Cups of 30 years ago were magnificent and memorable, but the Olympics is what the NHL went with and the results and excitement are not even close. This last World Cup had very little meaning and the average hockey fan didn't even care.