The next time the NHL has the opportunity to go to the Olympics, 12 years will have passed since its players last played on the biggest stage of them all.
No one should be surprised with Tuesday’s news that the NHL will be withdrawing from the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. There were warning signs when the league and its players agreed to go back in September, which escalated into alarm bells over the last few weeks since COVID-19 cases have spiked significantly.
Fifty postponed games later, and the NHL had no choice but to pull out of the Olympics in an effort to save its season.
#NHL Covid-19 (as of Dec. 21, 1pm ET)
131 players reported in active protocol (18% of rosters)
⬆️ 12 players over 24 hrs, incl. 7 players cleared
24 teams w/ at least 1 player in protocol
50 games postponed (45 in last 8 days)
1 game scheduled until Dec. 27 (TBL/VGK in jeopardy)— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) December 21, 2021
It’s a shame we’ve even gotten to this point. At multiple points this season, the NHL has failed to act quickly enough to curb the small COVID outbreaks that impacted the Ottawa Senators, New York Islanders, and New Jersey Devils earlier in the year. Unlike last year, there are no taxi squads teams can employ to replenish their ranks should they lose players to COVID protocols, which has put teams in salary cap hell or have made teams play understaffed because they have no cap space to bring up healthy players.
With the way the NHL and its players structured their original Olympic agreement, it was always going to be the Winter Games that would be the first to go at any sign of trouble. The NHL, in recent history, has never been a big fan of the Olympics anyway. In the NHL’s eyes, the Olympics bring in no revenue for the league, are a major insurance issue if player injuries occur, and also halt any in-season activity due to the timing.
The players, meanwhile, highly prioritize the Olympics, as for many (like Alex Ovechkin) there is no higher honor than playing for one’s home country on the biggest stage in the world. NHL Olympic participation has always been a tug-of-war between players and league leadership, and finally — for the first time in eight years — it seemed like the players would get their way.
But sadly, COVID-19 has once again ruined something many were looking forward to.
This is, of course, the right move. For player safety’s sake, as of Wednesday the NHL is on an extended holiday break with nearly 20 percent of the league’s active rosters in COVID protocols. The NHL now won’t resume play until Monday, December 27, hopefully giving players the chance to rest and recover and for the majority of this COVID outbreak to blow over.
Not only that, the NHL can now use the three-week break in February that was once set for the Olympics — and also the upcoming All-Star Game — to make up some of the games postponed due to this outbreak. There is talk that NHL players want to use that block to play a World Cup of Hockey style tournament, but honestly that time is best served by making up games as long as arena availabilities allow.
And yet, though this is the right move on all accounts for the NHL and player safety… it still sucks!!!
Steven Stamkos said it’s “disappointing” on likely no Olympics. “You grow up dreaming of winning a Stanley Cup and I’ve been able to accomplish that. You grow up wanting to represent your country and win a gold medal. That’s something I probably won’t have a chance to do now.”
— Joe Smith (@JoeSmithTB) December 21, 2021
It’s never fun to lose out on yet another Olympics of best-on-best men’s hockey. Do you remember who won the men’s tournament at the 2018 Winter Olympics? The Olympic Athletes from Russia. Not even Russia technically either, because of their ban from the World Anti-Doping Agency. Losing out on NHL players means we — as sports fans — lose out on one of the marquee events at the Olympics.
As for the players, many of the leagues stars have very likely played their last Olympics. By 2026, it’s hard to see stars such as Ovechkin, Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, John Tavares, and Carey Price making it back to the Olympics at their ages. And for players who have yet to have their first go arounds at the Olympics — such as Auston Matthews, Connor McDavid, Steven Stamkos, Nathan MacKinnon, and Jack Eichel — will all be four years older by the time Milano Cortina rolls around.
If there is one bright side from the lack of NHLers at the 2022 Winter Olympics, it’s that once again women’s hockey will take center stage. For all the disappointment Team USA on the men’s side has provided, the United States women are coming off a thrilling shootout gold medal victory over Canada and are looking to repeat as champions. Fans will likely see familiar faces in Hilary Knight, Amanda Kessel, and Kendall Coyne Schofield in Beijing, alongside newcomers such as Abbey Murphy and Jesse Compher.
At the end of the day, the NHL and its players made the right decision to withdraw from the Olympics. It’s a disappointing one, given how the league has handled Olympic participation in recent years and what it means for the players. And yet, for the players to get healthy and for the league to complete its 82-game schedule, this decision had to be made.
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