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January 25, 2024
Connor McDavid shone the brightest on All-Star Weekend
February 5, 2024
February 2, 2024 by Ryan Lotsberg
Friday turned out to be a big news day in the NHL as the league’s best and brightest were gathered in Toronto for the NHL All Star weekend. The Winnipeg Jets acquired Sean Monahan from the Montreal Canadiens, and the Los Angeles Kings fired Todd McLellan. The biggest news of the day was that the NHL will be returning to the Olympics in 2026 and 2030. Chris Johnston also reported that the league will hold the Four Nations Face-Off featuring Canada, the US, Finland, and Sweden to be hosted in Montreal and Boston in 2025.
NHL players were allowed to compete in the Olympics starting in Nagano, Japan in 1998, and they last competed in the Olympics in Sochi, Russia in 2014. According to TIME Magazine, the IOC had an agreement in place to pay for insurance, travel, accommodations, and other costs for NHL players starting in 1998; but the IOC refused to pay those fees for the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. The IOC did not pay fees for other professional leagues to send their players to the Olympics, so they felt it was not right to pay for the NHL to have its players at the Olympics.
According to Sportsnet, the IOC paid approximately $14 million for NHL players to go to Sochi. There was a lot of discussion around the merit of NHL players going to Sochi in the first place. Late Philadelphia Flyers owner Ed Snider said publicly that he didn’t see the value of sending players overseas to play in the event because it took hockey out of prime time television viewing. The owners, the league, and the NHLPA also did not want to pause the 2017-18 NHL season to allow players to participate.
The IIHF tried to step up with funding, but the NHL wouldn’t allow that because they wanted the money to come from the IOC, and they did not want funds that were supposed to be used for growing the game of hockey to be used on NHL players’ Olympic participation.
The NHL tried to negotiate with the IOC. The league offered to sell “home dates” for each team to the IOC. The NHL also tried to become an official sponsor of the Olympics so that the league could use the Olympic rings logo and use footage of their players competing in the event for marketing purposes. Predictably, the IOC did not agree to any of those proposals.
The other significant issue was the possibility of star players suffering serious injuries during the Olympics, as John Tavares did in Sochi. Owners did not want to risk losing their star players to injury needlessly, and the IOC was not willing to pay for insurance.
Details of the new agreement have not been released yet, but we do know that the NHL will be returning to the Olympics in 2026 in Milano Cortina, Italy and in 2030 (location TBD). Pierre LeBrun reported that the league plans to hold World Cup of Hockey events in 2028 and 2032. Frank Seravalli detailed the rules of the Four Nations Face-Off in this Tweet:
It’s an exciting day for hockey fans! Connor McDavid, the best player in the world today, has not participated in an Olympic tournament. He has never represented Canada in a true best-on-best style tournament at the senior level. We are in a short window where the three best players of their generations are all still active NHL players. Sidney Crosby will be 38 years old when the 2026 Olympics roll around. McDavid will still be in his prime, and Connor Bedard will be in his third NHL season. There’s a strong chance that all three of them could represent Canada in 2026.
Canada has won the last two Olympic tournaments that featured NHL players. Crosby scored the “Golden Goal” in overtime against the United States in the gold medal game in Vancouver in 2010. Carey Price led the way for Canada in Sochi in 2014 in what I feel was the greatest display of defensive hockey in any international tournament. Canada allowed three goals in the entire tournament. They had three shutouts in six games. They never allowed more than one goal in any given game.
Canada won gold in three of the five Olympic tournaments that have previously featured NHL players. Canada ended a 50-year Olympic gold medal drought in Salt Lake City in 2002. The 1952 Edmonton Mercurys were the last team to represent Canada and win gold at the Olympics prior to 2002.
Canada lost to Czechia in the Olympic semifinals in Nagano in 1998 after Wayne Gretzky was infamously left on the bench during the shootout. Dominik Hasek was unbelievable for Czechia en route to gold in 1998. Sweden won gold in Turin, Italy in 2006. Canada finished a disappointing tournament in seventh place.
These international competitions have a ton of intrigue. The last best-on-best event we saw was the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, which included the gimmicky but entertaining Team North America composed of the best age 23 and under players from Canada and the US. Now players from those teams like McDavid and Auston Matthews will have the opportunity to lead their nations in true best-on-best tournaments.
The smaller countries that typically get muscled out by the bigger hockey powers have more talent now than they ever have. All of the countries involved have top players. Germany will have Leon Draisaitl, who can dominate games. Tim Stutzle, Moritz Seider, and JJ Peterka will likely play key roles for Germany as well. Switzerland can boast Roman Josi, Nico Hischier, Timo Meier, and Kevin Fiala. That should make for intriguing upset possibilities.
Best-on-best tournaments are so good for hockey. They create so much buzz, and fans salivate over the possibilities of player combinations. Hockey has missed best-on-best tournaments, and it’s exciting that we’re finally going to see these events back in full force!
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