Players Get Their Wish With Return To The Olympics

02/03/2024 at 9:08am EST

from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

So the league that should have set the template for international competition and having a global presence is back in the best-on-best business and that is news worthy of celebration.
For while the Stanley Cup reigns supreme, the dirty secret is that Bobby Orr flying through the air on that Boston afternoon in May 1970 is a mere footnote attached to a list of hockey’s greatest moments that were forged on the world stage.
There’s never been anything as dramatic as the 1972 Summit Series between Canada and the USSR in which Paul Henderson grabbed on to the brass ring of immortality. Unless we are talking about the “They’re Going Home!” game at the Spectrum between the Flyers and the Red Army in January of ’76. Or maybe the 1980 Miracle On Ice Olympics in Lake Placid.
How about the 1996 World Cup best-of-three final round in which Team USA took out Canada in the final minutes of the decisive match in Montreal to win its lone best-on-best title on Brett Hull’s disputed goal that Glen Sather still refuses to recognize? Of course there are the 2010 Games in Vancouver that featured Sidney Crosby’s overtime Golden Goal.

continued

from Helene Elliott of the LA Times,

The return of NHL players to the Olympics at the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Games makes so much sense, it’s almost difficult to believe commissioner Gary Bettman agreed to let players represent their respective homelands in Italy and at a still-to-be-determined site in 2030 after holding them out of the two previous Olympic tournaments.
Persuading team owners that it would be worthwhile to pause the season for the Olympics was no small feat. Bettman, who this week celebrated his 32nd anniversary in office, still has that power. And this time he could guarantee they wouldn’t have to pay the hefty costs of players’ insurance or for housing them and their families at the Games, thanks to the International Ice Hockey Federation’s decision to take on that responsibility.
He framed it as a gift to players. But, as always, follow the money for the real motivation.
“There is a recognition of how important this is to the players. And in the spirit of cooperation, particularly the work that we did together during COVID, everybody felt on our side that it was the right thing to do,” Bettman said Friday at a news conference in Toronto during the NHL’s All-Star weekend.
“This really came down to doing something because the players really wanted it,” he said as he sat beside Marty Walsh, executive director of the NHL Players’ Assn., and Luc Tardif, president of the International Ice Hockey Federation.

continnued

OlderThanChelios

For while the Stanley Cup reigns supreme, the dirty secret is that Bobby Orr flying through the air on that Boston afternoon in May 1970 is a mere footnote attached to a list of hockeys greatest moments that were forged on the world stage.

So Brooks thinks the things that have happened in the Stanley Cup series over the years is just a footnote compared to international competion. That's one of the dumbest things I've ever seen written about hockey.

evileye

Something just doesn't sit right with a 4 nations tournament. It just seem right to talk about it being best on best yet excluding some of the best players on the planet. I get and support not have a Russian or Belarus team but Draisatl, Pasta, Seider, Josi and more should be able to compete some how, some way.

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Players Get Their Wish With Return To The Olympics

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