from Mike Zeisberger of the Toronto Sun,

Like a time bomb set to go off, the clock is ticking on the NHL’s potential participation at the 2018 Winter Olympics.

And it’s looking more and more as if any aspirations the players have of attending the Games in PyeongChang, South Korea, are on the verge of blowing up.

“If the status quo remains I don’t expect us to be in the Olympics,” NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said Saturday.

Judging by the fact that commissioner Gary Bettman said the subject of the Olympics came up “for about 10 seconds” during the board of governors meetings here Saturday, it certainly paints a pessimistic picture.

Daly’s doom-and-gloom tone came just minutes after Bettman’s state of the union address to the media, one in which the commissioner showed an emotional edge when it came to the subject of the Olympics — and, specifically, the International Olympic Committee.

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