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Any attempt by the NHL to pull out of the Olympics after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games will face a stiff fight from the NHL Players' Association.
Paul Kelly, executive director of the NHLPA, said Thursday that “NHL management does not have the right to make unilateral statements that we will not participate in the Olympics again. Players have strong views about the issue.”
The comments were in response to a recent story in The Globe and Mail in which an anonymous NHL executive said: “We're not going to the Olympics again,” in part because of rising insurance costs for players.
The sentiment was echoed by Carolina Hurricanes president and general manager Jim Rutherford, who said insurance costs might prevent NHL players from participating in all international events.
Many NHL owners are also not happy about interrupting the NHL season for the Olympics. They do not feel the league receives enough marketing impact for the break in the schedule and for risking injuries to its players.
Kelly said the players' involvement in international hockey, from the Olympics to the world championships to the World Cup, is covered by the collective agreement. The matter of international participation has to be part of the negotiations for the next agreement, which would cover the 2014 Winter Games in Russia.
The current agreement runs until the end of the 2010-11 NHL season. The players have the right to terminate it in May of 2009, but are not expected to do so since their salaries have been growing steadily.
“If someone is expressing his personal opinion, that's one thing,” Kelly said. “But if a person is making a statement on behalf of [all NHL] owners, it's not something that is embraced by the players.
“Our players believe international competition, particularly Olympic competition, is critically important to the sport. There is a lot of national pride involved. They believe it's a terrific way to grow the sport and expose it to an international audience.”
While player-insurance costs are paid for at the Olympics by the International Ice Hockey Federation and the International Olympic Committee, the hockey federations for each country have to pay them at the annual world championships. The NHL owners are also on the hook because, by agreeing to participate, they also agree to cover the uninsured portion of the contract of any player who is injured.
Because of the increasing number of long-term contracts worth tens of millions of dollars, the insurance costs are rising rapidly. And the NHL's insurance policy covers just the first seven years of a long-term contract.
However, Kelly said, the costs are not out of control yet and there are ways to deal with them. Even if a few players with long-term contracts have to stay out of international competitions because of the insurance cost, most NHL contracts are between three and six years and will remain affordable.
He also said the owners should delay any decision about the Olympics until after Vancouver.
“If the Vancouver Games are as successful as I anticipate, they will get enormous numbers on television and it will be a fabulous competition that will expose our sport in a way it's never been around the world,” Kelly said.
He also said if the poor relations between the NHL and Russia's new Continental Hockey League become a reason for the NHL to drop out of the 2014 Games in that country, the union will not blindly side with the owners.
“From a player perspective, we want keep an open mind,” Kelly said. “We're not going to roll over just because the owners want us to roll over. At this point, [NHL players] very much favour Olympic participation.”
NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said in an e-mail that while “there is no certainty” about international hockey beyond 2010, the league will not make any unilateral moves. He also said the insurance costs need not be a problem.
“This whole area is one that we and the [NHLPA] work very closely together, both now and historically,” Daly said. “I don't expect that to change. I agree with [Kelly] that the insurance issue is not one that I consider to be a prohibitive obstacle.”
