NHL: No Olympics in 2018 if status quo remains
LOS ANGELES — NHL participation in the next Olympics is looking grim.
That was the picture painted by NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and deputy commissioner Bill Daly at all-star weekend in Los Angeles. Bettman said the Olympic conversation lasted all of 10 seconds at the league’s board of governors meeting on Saturday. Nothing had changed from December, he told the board.
“If the status quo remains I don’t expect us to be in the Olympics,” Daly said after Bettman delivered his mid-season state of the union address to media.
NHL owners have expressed growing distaste toward their players returning to a sixth straight Olympics in PyeongChang, sentiment that was expressed most strongly when the governors last met previously in Palm Beach, Fla. in early December.