I'm looking forward to a non-nhl Olympics. I think the competition will be intense with many evenly matched teams even if the game play is not nhl calibre. I watched a fair bit of Spengler Cup and World Juniors and often times the TSN guys would start talkinh about how the various countries were approaching their Olympic team selection and preparing for the games. The impression that I received from their comments is that the USA probably wasn't doing enough in preparation for the games. It is obviously impossible to tell what will happen but the US team doesn't seem that impressive or exciting. I expect that the Euro teams will dominate.
As an aside, I really dislike the position and the bargaining from Bettman leading up to the decision. I know the NHL is trying to put together a strong campaign for growth in China and that they will likely be fairly eager to go to the games in China but I hope that the IOC keeps the NHL players out in 4 years just to spite Gary.
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