Tag: 2022 Olympics

Michigan State hockey alum Jake Chelios selected to Chinese Olympic team

Jake Chelios will be playing in this years’ Olympic Games

Jake Chelios was a fixture of Michigan State hockey’s blue line from 2010-2014. The son of Detroit Red Wings great Chris Chelios, Jake and his brother Dean were a huge part of the Spartans hockey program. Following his time in East Lansing, Chelios has spent a lot of time in the American Hockey League along with a short stint in the NHL with the Detroit Red Wings. Now, Chelios is a member of the Kunlun Red Star of the KHL.

It was announced over the weekend that Chelios will be participating in the 2022 Olympics as a member of the Chinese National Team.

Chelios is of American dissent, but due to the lack of high-level players from China, the host country is being allowed to pull players from Beijing’s own KHL team, the Kunlun Red Star, of which Chelios is a member.

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Justin Abdelkader to play for team USA in 2022 Olympics

Justin Abdelkader will be heading to Beijing with Team USA

Justin Abdelkader was a standout hockey player at Michigan State from 2005-2008 and scored the game-winning goal in the 2007 National Championship game to push the Spartans to the top. Following his Michigan State career, Abdelkader would spend the next 13 years of his career as a member of the Detroit Red Wings. Now, he will be representing Team USA in the 2022 Olympic games.

Abdelkader has played in several World Championships and a World Junior Championships for Team USA but never an Olympics, he will now be given that opportunity.

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The hockey world reacts to the NHL withdrawing from the 2022 Winter Olympics

The NHL’s Olympic dream is no more.

The NHL will be absent from the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing due to rising COVID-19 cases and rampant game postponements across the league.

On Tuesday, sources confirmed to USA Today that the NHL will miss its second straight Winter Olympics as the league has withdrawn its participation in the 2022 Beijing Games. This news comes off the mass of game postponements due to the latest COVID wave hitting not just the NHL, but sports leagues as a whole.

Back in September, the NHL and its players greenlit the league’s participation in the upcoming Winter Games, on the condition that as long as COVID-19 did not majorly impact the league’s schedule However, now that 50 games have been postponed as of Tuesday evening, the NHL had no choice but to pull the plug on Olympic participation.

Since the rise of COVID cases and game postponements over the last week and a half, it’s no surprise that the NHL has withdrawn from the Olympics. The league wants each team to play a full 82-game schedule and with the three-week break in February that was supposed to be used for the Olympics — and the upcoming All-Star Game in Las Vegas — the league may look to reschedule games during that block.

Still, this will be the second straight Olympics the NHL will miss, with their last coming in Sochi in 2014 after skipping the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang. Even though this is the right decision for the league and its players, here’s how the hockey world reacted to the news.

A way-too-early projection of the men’s 2022 Olympic hockey rosters with NHL players back

The NHL is headed back to the Olympics for 2022!

Your prayers have been answered, hockey fans, and the NHL will officially be participating in the 2022 Beijing Olympics!

There are, of course, caveats to this agreement between the NHL and the International Ice Hockey Federation, which was formally announced on Friday. For starters, the agreement allows the NHL the ability to withdraw in the event COVID-19 conditions worsen as the league approaches their February break in the 2021-22 season. Plus, the players themselves will be heavily restricted in their movements while in Beijing, will not be covered by COVID insurance, and must be vaccinated.

And yet, for now, the NHL is back at the Olympics for the first time since Sochi in 2014 after missing out on PyeongChang nearly four years ago. This is a very exciting moment for hockey fans and all sports watchers as a whole, as men’s hockey is not the same at the Olympics without NHL players.

As such, since we’re five months and change away from the 2022 Winter Olympics, I think it’s more than reasonable to put together a way-too-early projection of what the rosters will look like for some of the major teams. These are, effectively, our dream rosters for the major hockey powerhouses in the Olympics: the United States, Canada, Russia, Sweden, and Finland.

Oh, and of course, we’ll list the notable snubs we made along the way, just for fun.