[gamesaver]

I hate the fact that after 20 years, NHL stars are not participating. It was something to look forward to. World Cup of hockey can never replace that. It's no World Cup, it's just countries with enough NHL players, juniors and some bunch of loners together, who dont even speak the same language... Concept is simply brutal. You can't compare hockey to soccer, soccer has a world cup, but it's history is almost as long as modern Olympics history. You can't just recreate that kind of legacy out of nothing. Hockey doesnt have that so it was nice to have this major event every 4 years, everyone could look up to it and dream about it. But what do we have now? Guys like Ehlers or Draisaitl do not know if they will ever be able to participate in a major event. Maybe there won't be team "Europe-minus-hockey-countries" nextime and those guys will have to stay home.

That being said, I understand the reasoning and agree with OIC being corrupt and exploiting their position. But next cycle, after this Korean joke is over, NHL will be suddenly all intrested. Chinese market? Don't be fooled, NHL doesn't care about market, about chinese fans buying caps and stuff. They care about chinese capital, white collars buying out whole franchises. Think that's ridiculous? Just look across the ocean, there is a sellout of hundred years old trademarks right now. Italy? AC Milan, Inter Milan. Spain? Espanyol Barcelona, Atletico Madrid. England? Aston Villa, Manchester City, Birmingham,... France? Lyon, Nice, Auxerre,... The list goes on and I think it's not going to stop in Europe with those soccer clubs. And that is why I think we will see NHL in Beijing 2022.