from Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic,

The dialogue is ongoing between the NHL, the NHL Players’ Association, the International Olympic Committee and the International Ice Hockey Federation on participation for the 2026 Winter Games in Italy. Specifically, the matter at hand, as always, is getting the IOC and IIHF to cover enough costs for NHL player travel and insurance, among a few other issues to iron out.

“We’re still there,” NHLPA executive director Marty Walsh said Friday. “I don’t want to be overly optimistic, (but) I’m hoping that we get there. It’s important to our players to play in the Olympics. I think it’s important for fans to have best-on-best Olympics. Quite honestly, I think it’s best for the Olympics to have (best-on-best) hockey. It’s something that we should have.

“It’s a priority of ours, myself and also the NHL. We’ve made it very clear that we’re collectively working on this.”

Hopefully that resolution comes sooner rather than later, Walsh added.

“We’d like to be able to let the world know that we’re going to have NHL players in the Olympics in 2026, and I don’t want it to come back to the last hour,” he said. “This is a win-win-win.”

more ($) plus Joe Thornton and VGK talk...