Flyers

NHL Players Won’t Participate in Olympics

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Dec 22nd, 2021 · 11:42 AM EST

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This was perhaps inevitable, and Wednesday the NHL confirmed that players will not be participating in the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Here’s the press release:

NHL announces that there will not be an Olympic break, NHL Players will not be able to participate in 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.

Full release: https://t.co/GkHDkNgZSo pic.twitter.com/ysBmWctzjw

— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) December 22, 2021

This is a bummer, because Olympic hockey is the best hockey. Those Canada and USA games? Brilliant stuff. Speed and skill and talent on display. Not a lot of mucking and grinding and bullshitting along the boards.

For some background, the NHL and the Players Association negotiated 2022 and 2026 participation in the latest collective bargaining agreement. Players did not play in 2018 in South Korea because of other issues, so we haven’t seen NHL athletes in the Olympics since 2014, in Sochi. Instead, we got a 2018 Team USA captained by the retired Brian Gionta.

It’s probably disappointing for the Flyers who would have had a shot at making their respective teams. Claude Giroux, Provy, Lindblom, Risto, etc. The last time the NHL sent players to the Olympics, the Flyers representatives were Andrej Meszaros, Michael Raffl, Kimmo Timonen, Jake Voracek, and Mark Streit. No guys repping USA or Canada. Giroux was snubbed.