Usually, today’s My Two Cents would be my quadrennial love letter to Olympic Hockey. That and Ryder Cup Golf battle for first place on my list of absolute favorite sporting events. But this year, I am having a very hard time getting excited for the competition set to start next week.
For the first time since 1994, NHL players are not taking part in the Olympic competition. The league has barred anyone under contract to a team from heading to South Korea to represent their countries. That means we will not be getting “best on best” competition that we have enjoyed for the past 20-years. Instead, Team USA and Team Canada have had to select minor league players that were not on NHL rosters–while many European teams are allowed to use players from the second-best league in the world, the Kontinental Hockey League.
I can’t blame the NHL for deciding to bow out of these games. South Korea is not a “growth market” for the sport of hockey. Team USA and Team Canada will be playing their games in the wee hours of the morning North American time–so TV exposure will be almost nothing. Owners have grown tired of having to shut down the league for three weeks every four years, resulting in empty arenas and lost revenues. And to add insult to injury, the International Olympic Committee does not allow the NHL to use video footage of the games in any promotional messages or ads. So really, what point is there to sending all-star teams to PyeongChang (or to Beijing, China in 2022)?
There is a simple solution to this. Ice Hockey could be moved to the Summer Games. The reason basketball is played in the summer despite being a winter sport in most countries is that in the first couple of Olympics it was played outdoors–on dirt courts (which explains the absurdly low score in the first Gold Medal Game–which was played in a rain that turned the court into mud). Ice Hockey was also played outdoors at first (even the 1960 hockey venue at Squaw Valley, California was an open-air arena). But now, indoor refrigerated ice surfaces are common around the world so playing in August or September really isn’t that hard. That would allow NHL’ers on their summer off-season to take part. But that will never happen because that would mean giving up the premier event of the Winter Games. While we fawn over figure skating here in the US, in the rest of the world (actually Canada and Europe) the men’s hockey tournament is what everyone pays attention to. That’s why the Gold Medal Game is the last event before the closing ceremonies.
In all honesty, Team USA is a bunch of has-beens and never-weres. I would almost rather have seen us send a college all-star team that was given a year to play in a development program and see if they could re-capture some of the magic of the young unknowns that performed the Miracle On Ice in 1980. I guess that this year’s team could get hot and go on a two-week run and capture gold–but it won’t have that same “feel” that Lake Placid had.
That being said, I’m sure that as soon at the Red, White and Blue hits the ice to take on Slovenia for that first game at 6:10 am on Wednesday morning, the butterflies will return to my stomach and I’ll be keeping one eye on the TV here in the newsroom–living and dying with each shot, save and goal. They may be has-beens and never-weres–but they are OUR has-beens and never-weres. Plus, there’s always the women’s competition, where all the best in the world are playing–and Team USA and Team Canada are all but assured of meeting for the gold medal yet again.
