No hockey at the Olympics?

[Kshahdoo]

They say, it's possible.

Click to read more...

 

[JackSlater]

I would be pretty surprised if there was no hockey at any upcoming edition of the winter Olympics. Hockey sells tickets and draws viewers, plus it would look bad for the Olympic brand for one of the more prominent Olympic sports to disappear, particularly as a precedent for other sports like basketball. Honestly though numbers 2, 3 and 4 have basically the same significance for me.

 

[Jussi]

Clickbait. It's obvious 1 and 2 are the only realistic options.

 

[Baxterman]

There is no reason to not have hockey and millions of reasons to have hockey.

I know Fasel is an idiot and the IIHF is always willing to do moronic things but they love money and even more than that the IOC loves money and taking hockey out of the olympics takes away money from them. No way it happens.

 

[Jussi]

I'm not sure Fasel is even the IIHF general secretary anymore when this decision is made.

 

[93LEAFS]

I would be fine with any of the 4 options. I enjoy best on best, but I do hate the aspect of it being mid-season, and the potential to lose a player to injury playing in an event that doesn't matter to their club team. I care much more about the Leafs than I do for Team Canada, so if something like what happened to Tavares happened that cost him the stretch and the playoffs, I would be extremely pissed off. I sort of hope they could figure out how to do the World Cup properly, and incorporate all federations. Losing a guy in September isn't likely to be as bad as losing a key guy in late February/early March.

 

[rfournier103]

Since hockey is the only Olympic sport - winter OR summer - that I care about, I want to see the best out there.

 

[Hanji]

There is no reason to not have hockey and millions of reasons to have hockey.

I know Fasel is an idiot and the IIHF is always willing to do moronic things but they love money and even more than that the IOC loves money and taking hockey out of the olympics takes away money from them. No way it happens.

Fasel's not an idiot, the IIHF 'loves' money because that's how bottom level federations are funded. Without the IIHF, hockey would cease to exist in many countries.

 

[Corso]

I'd love to see option 3. The best young players in the game vying for a gold medal once every four years.

 

[93LEAFS]

I'd love to see option 3. The best young players in the game vying for a gold medal once every four years.

If its under 23, I'd be pretty surprised if the NHL was willing to accommodate that. For example, a team like the Leafs in the middle of the playoff race would not have been willing to allow Matthews, Marner and Nylander to go. I'm sure the Avs fighting for that last spot would have been equally reluctant to lose MacKinnon and Rantanen. So, at best you might get AHLers sent over, on top of the junior, NCAA and kids still in Europe. The NHL won't stop their schedule to send over U-23's and the NHL won't send their under 23's unless play is stopped. A bit of a catch 22.

 

[NyQuil]

It’ll go back to being irrelevant to me if the NHLers don’t participate.

 

[nickp91]

The NHL certainly does not want to miss out on the opportunity to market hockey in China

 

[VP]

I believe that nhl will participate in Beijing. And if they don't there still will be hockey like in Pyeongchang. Nobody want's hockey out of olympics.

 

[member 305909]

I watched the olympics but now six months later I can honestly say that hockey is the only event that I remember anything about.

Edit: on second thought, I remember the Finn winning the 50km cross-country ski race.

 

[Jussi]

IIRC, the IIHF vice secretary Kalervo Kummola commented on the U-23 teams idea as ridiculous.

Fasel also commented on option 4 by saying ice hockey is the only daily sport in the winter Olympics and thus sells the most tickets of any other event. So it's rather unlikely that the IOC would remove it.

 

[tobu]

The idea is that winter OGs will have no hockey. Which means, summer OGs could - after-all, they are in the summer and no league would be affected.

 

[MaxV]

Hockey is probably one of the most popular events in winter OG, I doubt they would remove it.

 

[Jussi]

The idea is that winter OGs will have no hockey. Which means, summer OGs could - after-all, they are in the summer and no league would be affected.

As Fasel said, hockey sell the most tickets because it's a daily sport so it's unlikely to not feature at the winter Olympics.

 

[Hivemind]

Negotiating tactic.