Olympics: Move Mens Ice hockey to Summer Olympics?

[JETZZZ]

The IIHF said they are cool with covering travel/insurance costs for NHL players but the NHL still doesn't want to go. The only legit reason the NHL wants to stop players from going to Olympics is that they dont want to pause the season for 3 weeks. Moving mens ice hockey to the Summer Olympics will fix that.

Pros:
-Best-on-best ice hockey every 4 years again
-NHL can still play an 82 game season without having to condense schedule
-More practice/prep time for selected players

Cons:
-Mens ice hockey will become a much smaller fish in a much bigger pond in August
-Summer Olympics is in Summer

Thoughts?

Click to read more...

 

[puckpilot]

I like it, but I think there could be infrastructure problems with host cities. Now, they may have to build ice rinks. A summer Olympic city may not be the best city be building ice rinks, eg Rio.

 

[TOGuy14]

Would kill the WCOH, which I am fine with.

Biggest issue is the IOC wants hockey in the winter Olypmpics because that is their top event for those games. Summer games already have basketball, 100M sprints etc.

 

[Hank Chinaski]

The IIHF said they are cool with covering travel/insurance costs for NHL players but the NHL still doesn't want to go. The only legit reason the NHL wants to stop players from going to Olympics is that they dont want to pause the season for 3 weeks. Moving mens ice hockey to the Summer Olympics will fix that.

Pros:
-Best-on-best ice hockey every 4 years again
-NHL can still play an 82 game season without having to condense schedule
-More practice/prep time for selected players

Cons:
-Mens ice hockey will become a much smaller fish in a much bigger pond in August
-Summer Olympics is in Summer

Thoughts?

North American basketball seasons (pro, collegiate, high school) run through winter, same as hockey.

As far as reasons not to hold in summer, IMO that doesn't rank very high. Ice Hockey was actually introduced as an Olympic sport at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp.

I like it, but I think there could be infrastructure problems with host cities. Now, they may have to build ice rinks. A summer Olympic city may not be the best city be building ice rinks, eg Rio.

They need arenas to host basketball, yes? Only real infrastructure problem is that they'd have to construct or renovate an existing arena so that it could accomodate an ice surface.

Although now that I think about it, that would be pretty chaotic to host basketball and hockey at the same venue. Probably doable, but chaotic with the conversions, scheduling, etc.

 

[Xokkeu]

Would kill the WCOH, which I am fine with.

Biggest issue is the IOC wants hockey in the winter Olypmpics because that is their top event for those games. Summer games already have basketball, 100M sprints etc.

Pretty this is why it won't happen.

 

[FiLe]

There's no way IOC will even entertain the idea of having hockey in the Summer Games, simply because of logistics. The summer version is chock full of venues as it is. The inclusion of events is a constant tug-of-war between the IOC and various governing bodies. Whenever they add something to the summer games, something else needs to go.

The Winter Games, however, are the complete opposite - there's still plenty of room for additional venues they can just chalk in and not think twice about it. So moving something as big as hockey from winter to summer is an idea born dead, no matter how much more easy it would be to get NHL players to participate.

 

[tony d]

They used to play it in the Summer Olympics yrs. ago. Still, ice hockey in the summer olympics doesn't make sense to me.

 

[Conspiracy Theorist]

Better than not having best-on-best hockey at all.

 

[kaiser matias]

As far as reasons not to hold in summer, IMO that doesn't rank very high. Ice Hockey was actually introduced as an Olympic sport at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp.

That was because there was only one Olympics. The 1920 Olympics had two winter sports (hockey and figure skating) which were held in April as opposed to August and September for the rest of the Olympics and the success of these events prompted the IOC to create the Winter Olympics in 1924, to not mix up events in the future.

 

[lancer247]

The IIHF said they are cool with covering travel/insurance costs for NHL players but the NHL still doesn't want to go. The only legit reason the NHL wants to stop players from going to Olympics is that they dont want to pause the season for 3 weeks. Moving mens ice hockey to the Summer Olympics will fix that.

Pros:
-Best-on-best ice hockey every 4 years again
-NHL can still play an 82 game season without having to condense schedule
-More practice/prep time for selected players

Cons:
-Mens ice hockey will become a much smaller fish in a much bigger pond in August
-Summer Olympics is in Summer

Thoughts?

Yes. The NBA is a winter sport that plays in the summer Olympics. They would never interrupt their season. It's ridiculous that the NHL lets its brand take a back seat every 4 years

 

[alko]

Interesting Idea. I have another one.

Dont move it to Summer Olympics. Lets move Winter games to southern hemisphere. South America, New Zealand, Aussies . Then you can have Winter Olympics and play it in summer. With full NHL roster without any restrictions.

 

[namttebih]

Interesting Idea. I have another one.

Dont move it to Summer Olympics. Lets move Winter games to southern hemisphere. South America, New Zealand, Aussies . Then you can have Winter Olympics and play it in summer. With full NHL roster without any restrictions.

I hear that the X country skiing is fabulous in New Zealand.

 

[Xokkeu]

Interesting Idea. I have another one.

Dont move it to Summer Olympics. Lets move Winter games to southern hemisphere. South America, New Zealand, Aussies . Then you can have Winter Olympics and play it in summer. With full NHL roster without any restrictions.

You'd only have like three host possibilities

 

[TorstenFrings]

You'd only have like three host possibilities

I can't even think of three, help me out.

I guess Chile and Argentina have southern parts that do get fairly cold and have mountain ranges, but there also tend to be only small cities with no international airports in those parts, which is not going to go over well with the IOC. Can't exactly shuttle millions of people from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia on the daily.

 

[Urbanskog]

I can't even think of three, help me out.

I guess Chile and Argentina have southern parts that do get fairly cold and have mountain ranges, but there also tend to be only small cities with no international airports in those parts, which is not going to go over well with the IOC. Can't exactly shuttle millions of people from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia on the daily.

New Zealand. Argentina is actually considering to bid for the 2026 Winter Olympics. New Zealand considered it too but decided against it.

 

[CokenoPepsi]

No more nhlers at olympics please just bad hockey

 

[Isles72]

this is the first time I hear inserting hockey into summer olympics as an idea coming from bettmans lips .fans have probably chatted about it from time to time but its hard to picture ice hockey in a place like Rio (for example)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/audi...er-bettman-hints-at-ny-islanders-future-audio

 

[WaveRaven]

No thanks, I already pick the outdoors over the playoffs.

 

[Jets4Life]

No.

I prefer the Winter Olympics, and it would not make sense to move a sport that is played in Winter to the Summer Olympics. In addition it would be very difficult to get the top players from each coutry to abandon their summer vacations in order to compete.

 

[TorstenFrings]

New Zealand. Argentina is actually considering to bid for the 2026 Winter Olympics. New Zealand considered it too but decided against it.

Ok, that's one.

Two, if you count New Zealand, but I think that'd have much the same problems as the less populous regions of Patagonia. Not many big cities or big airports and a whole lot of national park land.

I wonder if it gets snowy enough around Mendoza for cross-country skiing. That might suffice for city size and the Andes are close by. Which would make it three. So, gotcha.

 

[Xokkeu]

I can't even think of three, help me out.

I guess Chile and Argentina have southern parts that do get fairly cold and have mountain ranges, but there also tend to be only small cities with no international airports in those parts, which is not going to go over well with the IOC. Can't exactly shuttle millions of people from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia on the daily.

Argentina Chile New Zealand have legitimate alpine facilities. The US ski team trains in South America. I don't know about Australia's skiing facilities but that's literally it. South Africa has no snow and there just isn't a lot of land in the Southern Hemisphere.

 

[Beezeral]

Roller hockey in the summer Olympics plz

 

[Yakushev72]

Hockey would be so overshadowed by other more prominent and widely followed international sports that it would probably do more harm than good. If it bombed in terms of generating positive attention focused on the sport, it could hurt the bottom line on negotiating for television contracts and merchandise sales. And then you would have the jurisdictional issues in the IOC between the Summer and Winter Games, assuming the Summer Games would even have any interest at all. Don't look for it to happen anytime soon.

 

[TorstenFrings]

Argentina Chile New Zealand have legitimate alpine facilities. The US ski team trains in South America. I don't know about Australia's skiing facilities but that's literally it. South Africa has no snow and there just isn't a lot of land in the Southern Hemisphere.

I think there actually is alpine skiing in South Africa too. Alpine skiing events seems to be the least of the problem with Winter Olympics in the southern hemisphere. It's all the sports that don't take place high up on a mountain.

Then again, they had them in Sochi. I need to stop expecting them to give a **** about wasting public money on bobsled complexes where no one wants them.

 

[Xokkeu]

I think there actually is alpine skiing in South Africa too. Alpine skiing events seems to be the least of the problem with Winter Olympics in the southern hemisphere. It's all the sports that don't take place high up on a mountain.

Then again, they had them in Sochi. I need to stop expecting them to give a **** about wasting public money on bobsled complexes where no one wants them.

I've climbed the highest mountains in South Africa in winter. I don't proclaim to be an expert but it was about 20 degrees Celsius.

I think it's possible if a country like Argentina really really wanted it they could build a **** load of arenas in Bariloche, or maybe have the arenas in Buenos Aires. But considering that would essentially be two different host cities it would break from precedent.