NHL still mulling next two Olympic Games, focusing on World Cup

Gary Bettman told the Prime Time Sports and Entertainment conference in Toronto that the NHL is still considering Winter Olympic participation, but that a decision on the 2018 Games in PyeongChang won’t need to be made for another year.

One thing that’s become clear about the NHL and the Winter Games is that they view the next two Olympics as a package deal. The Beijing Games of 2022 present some of the same geographic and television challenges for the NHL. But if they’re going to South Korea, then they might as well go to China, too.

I still believe this is a whole lotta posturing from the NHL to open up revenue streams that the IIHF and the IOC refuse to give them.

The best example of this is merchandise – there’s no reason why the NHL shouldn’t have the chance to sell branded national shirts and jerseys with their players on the back if the League is throwing its star-power into the second most popular event in the Winter Games behind figure skating.

But then again, the focus on the World Cup of Hockey shows the NHL is serious about creating its own Olympic counter-programming, and a tournament that doesn’t do what the Olympics do which is interrupt the regular season.

“It's a destruction in the momentum of our season,” is how Bettman put it today, via Scott Stinson.

I feel that feel, because the bottom line is that the NHL doesn’t get any benefit from the Olympics. None. There’s no bump, no flood of new eyes. The tournament has only “created” a handful of star moments. Sidney Crosby was already the most famous hockey player on the planet when he scored the Golden Goal. T.J. Oshie is now entered into U.S. hockey lore, but let’s kindly say that his team ended up not matching his personal success.

(One benefit to the NHL not participating in the games would be the spotlight placed on the younger players that would probably move up unto those national teams. You would have players who were Olympic legends before stepping onto NHL ice – remember that Peter Forsberg fellow?)

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That said, an NHL Olympic tournament in Beijing has to at least raise an eyebrow for guys like John Collins and Bill Daly, who have been playing the international long-game for some time. China is undiscovered country for hockey. That’s a place where participation could, in theory, lead to something beneficial to the NHL down the line.

But essentially, we’re still stuck where we were last year on this. The NHL only wants to go under their conditions. The NHLPA totally wants to go, and faces the threat of some players just leaving the NHL for a month to do so. (Hi, Alex Ovechkin.) NBC has billions of dollars invested in the Olympics and billions of dollars invested in the NHL, and would like the latter to boost the former. And the majority of fans want that sweet hockey heroin of the Olympic tournament, even if it means shutting down the regular season.

So expect some kind of announcement on the Olympics a year from now, when the NHL has proof of concept for the World Cup and can dictate terms to the IOC and the IIHF. And then we’ll see how much both sides value their participation.

“Value” being the operative word.

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Greg Wyshynski is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter. His book, TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE PUCK, is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.