John Tavares says he ‘would love to go’ to the Olympics again, but whether the NHL will participate in 2018 is unclear and looking increasingly grim.Julie Jacobson/The Associated Press
John Tavares's first Olympics proved to be "bittersweet."
Though he ultimately captured gold with Team Canada in 2014, Tavares didn't get to play in the gold medal game against Sweden because of a knee injury.
"Well, personally I would love to go again," said Tavares during all-star weekend in Los Angeles.
Whether he'll get that chance again is unclear and looking increasingly grim. The NHL remains reluctant to commit to attending the next Games in South Korea with deputy commissioner Bill Daly stating Saturday: "If the status quo remains I don't expect us to be in the Olympics."
The NHL's board of governors met Saturday and spent about 10 seconds on the Olympics, according to commissioner Gary Bettman. The governors have expressed increasing angst against players returning to a sixth consecutive Games, opposed to shutting down their season in February for an event which they believe lacks in tangible benefit.
Those players who have been hope they'll reconsider.
"I would love to go there [again]," said Sergei Bobrovsky, the Columbus Blue Jackets netminder who represented Russia on home soil in 2014. "I think still it's the biggest competition in the world, one of the big ones at least."
Bobrovsky said the history of the event couldn't be replicated elsewhere.
"It's great to be part of it too," he said. "To represent your country it's a huge honour."
Beyond the logistical hurdles that shutting down for the Olympics requires – a compressed schedule and greater risk of injury – the NHL isn't convinced that attending actually benefits the league in the big picture. There was evidence, they've said, of an impact when the Games were in Salt Lake City, Utah (2002) and Vancouver (2010), but not so much when they took place outside of North America in Nagano, Japan (1998), Turin, Italy (2006) and Sochi, Russia (2014).
Beijing in 2022, certainly has appeal with its massive audience, PyeongChang far less so.
The owners also weren't pleased when the International Olympic Committee said it would no longer subsidize the involvement of NHL players as it had since 1998.
"Certainly I think big-picture there's obviously a lot of challenges to it," Tavares said. "But at the end of the day I think we as players love representing our countries and best-on-best hockey doesn't happen very often. Those are things I think you really enjoy as a player and appreciate."
"I agree 100 per cent because at [the] Olympic Games, people who don't know [about] hockey, what's the puck [or] all the rules," Bobrovsky said. "The whole world [is] watching the games, the Olympic Games and the hockey."
The International Ice Hockey Federation has said it could come up with the out-of-pocket costs associated with NHL players attending – upwards of $10-million (U.S.) according to Bettman – but the league is skeptical. Bettman reiterating Saturday that money was never the only issue.
"We said from the outset that if they're not going to pay the expenses we don't even have to think about this," Bettman said.
"There were probably some owners over time who always thought the Olympics were a good idea," he added. "There were some owners who always hated it and then there were probably a bunch of clubs that really didn't give it much thought until the IOC said 'We're not going to pay the expenses.' And then I think it caused a number of clubs to say, 'Well, wait a minute. If that's how they value our participation, why are we knocking ourselves out?"' What exactly will convince the NHL to budge on letting its players attend isn't clear, even to those involved.
"All I can tell you is if we're going to hear the same thing I don't think it's going to move the ball," Daly said.