NHL announces its players won’t be going to Winter Olympics

Three months after saying NHL players would be heading back to the Olympics, the league on Wednesday did an about-face.

In a statement, the league said the disruption to its regular-season schedule caused by COVID-19 had prompted the NHL to pull its players out of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.

“The National Hockey League respects and admires the desire of NHL players to represent their countries and participate in a ‘best-on-best’ tournament,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said in the statement. “Accordingly, we have waited as long as possible to make this decision while exploring every available option to enable our players to participate in the 2022 Winter Olympic Games.

“Unfortunately, given the profound disruption to the NHL’s regular-season schedule caused by recent COVID-related events — 50 games already have been postponed through Dec. 23 — Olympic participation is no longer feasible.”

The NHL and NHL Players’ Association reached an agreement with the International Ice Hockey Federation in September for the league’s players to go to the Games for the first time since the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

Bettman said the league appreciated the work done by the International Olympic Committee, the IIHF and the Beijing organizing committee, but the NHL couldn’t see a way around the decision.

“Our focus and goal have been and must remain to responsibly and safely complete the entirety of the NHL regular season and Stanley Cup playoffs in a timely manner,” Bettman said. “Therefore, with stringent health protocols again in place, we will begin utilizing available dates during the Feb. 6-22 window (originally contemplated to accommodate Olympic participation) to reschedule games that have been, or may yet be, postponed.”

NHLPA executive director Don Fehr said players have been looking forward to returning to the Olympics, but the two-week period in February will be needed to reschedule regular-season games.

“Certainly, the players and hockey fans are quite disappointed,” Fehr said in a statement. “But playing a full 82-game season this year, something the pandemic has prevented us from doing since the 2018-19 season, is very important.

“We expect that NHL players will return to the Olympics in 2026.​”