Both the NHL and NHLPA have agreed not to send any of their players to participate in the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics in February, according to reports from The Toronto Star’s Chris Johnston and Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli. A decision was made Tuesday by the league and its players, according to Johnston. The International Olympic Committee must now be consulted to make sure it is without problems. Ten people will not have to pay for not going to the Olympics. In 1998, the NHL let its players play in the Olympics for the first time, until the PyeongChang Olympics in 2018.
The NHL and the NHLPA agreed to go to China for the 2022 Olympic Games in September, but that agreement with the International Ice Hockey Federation allowed either party to pull out if the COVID-19 conditions made participation “unsafe”. The two sides agreed at first to go to China as part of negotiations to keep the current collective bargaining agreement in place when the league started up again in March 2020. However, the owners don’t like the Olympics for a number of reasons, but they promised their players that they would do everything they could to get them to China.
More worries than COVID-19
The NHL was worried about more than just the risk of getting coronavirus at the Olympics. It also worried about the uncertainty about quarantine time for an athlete who tests positive, the worsening of diplomatic relations between China and the West, restrictions on the ground, and allegations of human rights abuses in the host country.
Sidney Crosby, a two-time Olympic gold medal winner with the Pittsburgh Penguins, was on Canada’s first roster for the Beijing Olympics. He told ESPN that he feels bad for the players who might not be able to play in another Olympics. Steve Stamkos, the captain of the Tampa Bay Lightning, who would have been on the Canada team that would have played in China, told The Athletic that he was disappointed about not be able to go.
