New York: The National Hockey League announced on Monday that it will not shut down it’s regular season to allow top players to compete at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
The NHL had sent players to the past five Winter Olympics, starting with the Nagano Games in 1998, interrupting it’s regular season to do so.
But the break was unpopular with club owners, and the league said its attempts to negotiate a deal with other interested parties including the International Olympic Committee, the International Ice Hockey Federation and the NHL Players’ Association had failed.
“A number of months have now passed and no meaningful dialogue has materialised,” the league said in a statement. “Instead, the IOC has now expressed the position that the NHL’s participation in Beijing in 2022 is conditioned on our participation in South Korea in 2018.
“And the NHLPA has now publicly confirmed that it has no interest or intention of engaging in any discussion that might make Olympic participation more attractive to the clubs.
“As a result, and in an effort to create clarity among conflicting reports and erroneous speculation, this will confirm our intention to proceed with finalising our 2017-18 regular season schedule without any break to accommodate the Olympic Winter Games. We now consider the matter officially closed.”
While the decision likely means many top players such as Pittsburgh Penguins star Sidney Crosby, who sparked Canada to gold in 2010 and 2014, won’t play in Pyeongchang, some like Russia’s Alex Ovechkin have vowed to play in the Games regardless of what their clubs think.
