NHL announces its players won’t be going to Winter Olympics
Three months after saying NHL players would be heading back to the Olympics, the league on Wednesday did an about-face.
In a statement, the league said the disruption to its regular-season schedule caused by COVID-19 had prompted the NHL to pull its players out of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.
“The National Hockey League respects and admires the desire of NHL players to represent their countries and participate in a ‘best-on-best’ tournament,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said in the statement. “Accordingly, we have waited as long as possible to make this decision while exploring every available option to enable our players to participate in the 2022 Winter Olympic Games.
“Unfortunately, given the profound disruption to the NHL’s regular-season schedule caused by recent COVID-related events — 50 games already have been postponed through Dec. 23 — Olympic participation is no longer feasible.”