Good For The Fans And Players
from Damien Cox at the Toronto Star,
So we’ll finally get to see Connor McDavid in a Canada jersey. Not as a teenager this time, but as the NHL’s marquee player.
That’s good. Who wouldn’t want to see that? How about McDavid on a line with Brayden Point and Mitch Marner?
Auston Matthews will lead the American Olympic team for the first time, Elias Pettersson will star for Sweden and Andrei Vasilevskiy will try to bring gold to Russia. Hockey writers and broadcasters now get several months of madly fantasizing over the makeup of each country’s roster, easy fodder for the media and something hockey fans love to debate.
This is all good.
The process of getting NHL players to China this winter, however, has left much to be desired. Indeed, the league’s release just before noon on Friday that an agreement had been concluded that would return the NHL to the Olympic “family” for the first time since Sochi in 2014 was anything but triumphant or inspiring. It was terse, and unenthusiastic, which makes sense since Gary Bettman has made it clear NHL owners are participating in the 2022 Winter Olympics against their will.
continued
Perhaps Mr. Cox missed this, but the press release he is referring to is a joint release from both the NHL and NHLPA....
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