"We understood the importance of this to the players, and we made a commitment that if we could achieve terms that were satisfactory that we would agree to shut down our season and allow players to participate. I really view this as us making good on that commitment.

"I think we all have a high level of concern about whether these are the appropriate Games at the appropriate time, but given the players' overwhelming interest in going, we felt it was important to extend ourselves to make sure it happened."

-Bill Daly, deputy commissioner of the NHL. Nicholas J. Cotsonika of NHL.com has more.