Quote:
Originally Posted by Yeah_Baby
That and they'd likely benefit more finically from the World Cup of Hockey as an NHL adjacent event rather than IOC.
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The NHL just can't figure out what it wants and how to do it. They want guaranteed revenue from a World Cup but every inauguration and/or reboot will have growing pains which the NHL can't afford to have. But they also want to grow the game. They had to make up European and TNA teams to ensure less non-NHL players in the tournament.
The Canada Cup was a Hockey Canada invitational after the Summit Series and had growing pains and really had one memorable tournament in 1987. The rest were forgettable. The NHL and NHLPA tried to mirror that in 1996 to mixed results and then concluded that going to the Olympics would be better for the product, again to mixed success. They couldn't have predicted the situation now where so few "Western" cities want to host the winter games. After Vancouver, people were saying, this is such a success, Vancouver should host it every few editions. Heck, Vancouver doesn't even want it now. They are going to go from Sochi, to Pyeongchang, to Beijing, to Milan. 2030 is maybe Salt Lake again but who knows what the politics will look like. It could end up in France.