NHL GOING TO OLYMPICS 2022 F-YEAH!!!

[thegx.ca]

5 hours ago, SaucyJack said:

I phrased this poorly.  My point was that any league that plays such a long “regular” season without eliminating a high % of its teams, allowing so many middle-of-the-road teams to advance to its REAL and ultimate challenge, is not a very serious or important campaign.  Add college hoops major conference regular seasons to that list.  (Interruptions would be tolerable even though the hoopsters currently don’t have them in practice.)

 

Yes the NHL is premier in ice hockey. But the Olympics do not interrupt its critical moments.  Now if the Olympics asked to be timed so as to interrupt during the NHL playoffs, of course that would be out of the question.

 

In World Soccer, the top 5 leagues (England, Italy, Spain, Germany, France) plus the UEFA Champions League are probably more important as club competitions than the World Cup, surpassing it at least for many.   But they still take “international breaks” on various weekends of the year to do the nation vs nation qualifying, “interrupting” the club competition schedules.  (Whether World Cup qualies or Euro Championship qualies or off-season ‘friendlier’ aka ‘Nations League’.). Sure it’s not as long as an Olympic break but they do this every soccer season for some nation v nation event.  Hockey has a longer interruption once every 4 years.

 

The Olympics does not interrupt the Stanley Cup pursuit in any meaningful way.  This argument might be valid if a lesser number of teams qualified for the playoffs.  Then, a team might complain that it’s hot streak got ruined by an Olympic break, preventing them significantly in snaring that 8th and final playoff spot.   Right now, any teams qualifying, say, 13th thru 20th, half making playoffs, half not, it’s partly crapshoot luck.  (That’s OK, be top 25% in the regular season and you don’t need a bit of luck to eke into the playoffs.)

 

 

I think bottom line is that if players are willing to make going to the Olympics a big enough issue in collective bargaining agreements - players see the Olympics as more important than the Stanley Cup.

 

Also, how can anyone argue that a team of all-stars is not better than the Stanley Cup teams? Stanley Cup teams are restricted by the salary cap, that alone speaks to how much better Olympic teams are compared to NHL teams - it baffles me that little wouldn't want to see the best part against each other, since the players already openly do want to see it too.

 

Even if the Olympics interrupted the season significantly, I think most players would choose the Olympics - can't think of any players saying the NHL takes precedence over the Olympics.

 

Even though many people have no interest in the Olympics, I think it's hard to argue that the Olympic medals is not the highest achievement in any sport including professional sports.

[Puck_Pun]

7 hours ago, ruxpin said:

 

The Stanley Cup is supposed to be the penultimate trophy in sports.  So let's interrupt playing for it to risk injury or exhaustion in the middle to play for a lesser, by extension, trophy (medal). 

 

I hope you mean ultimate or premier

[ruxpin]

2 hours ago, Puck_Pun said:

 

I hope you mean ultimate or premier

I'm just hoping I meant something at all!

 

Yes, I actually meant to type ultimate. Not sure if my swipe keyboard changed it or it premier went through my head and I ended up mixing the two. Could be an aneurysm.

 

I miss the days when I could edit. Lol Good call!

[Alexandron]

In my opinion, Olympics is a rare event happening every 4 years in comparison to annual Stanley Cup and World Championship. And I think many professional hockey players would like to have an Olympic gold in their career. Especially, if they really want to be a Triple Gold Club member, like for example Kucherov and Ovechkin are dreaming about that.