NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly has suggested the NHL "could skip" the 2018 PyeongChang Games and still return for the 2022 Beijing Games, as China has been "portrayed as a potential new hotbed for growing hockey," according to Mark Zwolinski of the TORONTO STAR. Daly said, "It’s possible we don’t go to one and go to the other ... we’ll see how that works." He added that there "needs to be a decision on the next Olympics within the next two months" (TORONTO STAR, 9/28). In Toronto, Mike Zeisberger wrote the NHL’s stance on the Olympics is that either the IOC “picks up the costs for issues such as player insurance, travel and lodging (as it has in the past), or the league will not agree to allow its players to participate.” Daly said that a “recent update received by the league regarding talks between IIHF and the IOC did not provide much promise.” Daly: “I’m not going to handicap it, but what I’d say is I think time is very short to make a decision and I’m not sure there’s been a lot of progress made in the past six months” (TORONTO SUN, 9/28). IIHF President Rene Fasel this week said that he "believes the odds are 50-50" that the NHL "will be in South Korea in two years." Fasel said that he "intends to 'beg'" for $10M to "cover travel and insurance expenses for NHL players to be at the Olympics" (AP, 9/27).
SOME COULD STILL GO: YAHOO's Greg Wyshynski reported NHL Washington Capitals player Alex Ovechkin has "threatened on multiple occasions that he would leave his team to play for Russia in the Olympics if the NHL doesn’t continue to send its players." Daly said that while Ovechkin is one of the NHL’s "biggest stars, it would be up to the Capitals to decide whether or not he’d be allowed to leave for the Olympics" (YAHOO, 9/27).
