Don't doubt it at all. Japan was a rehearsal for SLC. Europe was owed seeing the NHL'ers in Turin and weren't going to pull the players for one Olympics with Vancouver on the horizon. Then of course Vancouver, and then the Russians were making a stink in late 2010 when the NHL wasn't 100% on board with going there now..and guys like Ovechkin said they'd be going anyway.
There is no ulterior agenda for going to Korea/promoting hockey in Korea, for the IIHF or IOC, as there has been since Japan.
And the big kicker? TV. Remember watching some prelim games and then the Czech semi final at 2am in 1998 from Nagano? Me too, barely. Looking at it as a business, no way the sponsors pay a premium to the networks to air their flag waving ads, when its 4am in the Eastern time zone and the audience is chopped severely.
|