Olympics: Dreger: NHL players will not participate in 2018 Winter Olympics [NHL says undecided]

[Deuce Awesome]

Can someone explain to me why the NHL won't let its players participate in future Olympics. I don't feel like digging up for the answer as I am at work

I could probably summarize it in two words. Money;politics. What they actually tell us will be hogwash.


*edit* as mentioned this is all based on Darren Dreger. Who has a fairly low prediction score.

 

[radapex]

It is believe me. Lacrosse has a league that Im not even sure still exists.

In my hockey car collection I have a few tobacco cards from 1910 that contained lacrosse players alongside hockey players. I think at the turn of the century they may have been closer in popularity but obviously since then things have changed.

So while Lacross may be Canada's "official sport" the page than contains that information is wrote in Old English and is slightly yellowed.

The NLL is alive and doing pretty well. The Colorado Mammoth drew the best attendance last season at 15,761 per game followed by the Buffalo Bandits at 15,620. The league-wide average was up 2% from 2012 and is closing in on 10,000.


The number of people playing hockey in Canada has been on a steady decline for the past 16 years. It dropped almost by over 650,000 between 1998 (Rank: 1st) and 2010 (Rank: 2nd).

I can't find numbers from within the last four years, but I believe it's now dropped to third behind golf and soccer. A lot of people claim that hockey is simply too expensive to keep kids in today, but golf is only marginally cheaper and it's the most played sport in the country.

 

[radapex]

They haven't made that decision yet. At some point, it will be put up for a vote by the owners. From what I've heard, Bettman is on board with continuing to send them.

It really doesn't matter whether Bettman is on board or not since it's the owners who make the decision. The only positive is that he may be able to sway a few votes in favour of going.

 

[MuckOG]

It really doesn't matter whether Bettman is on board or not since it's the owners who make the decision. The only positive is that he may be able to sway a few votes in favour of going.

Bettman has quite a bit of sway, he can definitely influence the outcome. He understands how these games are good for the NHL in the long run.

 

[Deuce Awesome]

The NLL is alive and doing pretty well. The Colorado Mammoth drew the best attendance last season at 15,761 per game followed by the Buffalo Bandits at 15,620. The league-wide average was up 2% from 2012 and is closing in on 10,000.


The number of people playing hockey in Canada has been on a steady decline for the past 16 years. It dropped almost by over 650,000 between 1998 (Rank: 1st) and 2010 (Rank: 2nd).

I can't find numbers from within the last four years, but I believe it's now dropped to third behind golf and soccer. A lot of people claim that hockey is simply too expensive to keep kids in today, but golf is only marginally cheaper and it's the most played sport in the country.

Glad to hear its doing well. I know when the Toronto Rock were winning you would hear about it, but to be honest I haven't heard about them in the MSM for some time now. Having said that Toronto's media bias is 80% Leafs 15% Blue Jays and 5% everything else, so I guess its not a true indicator of sport popularity.

Im not surprised at all by the stats you provided regarding hockey's drop in participation. Two pronged attack in my opinion: first being a huge demographic shift in southern Ontario, where immigration from countries who have never seen a skate is now being felt. Im sure it applies in other CDN cities as well.

In the more rural areas where immigration is not as vast (where I live) the middle class has been destroyed. Most of my peer group who have made the choice to have kids have very little income left over to pay the high fees for hockey. Does not apply to me as I am not having kids.

Golf, well golf is huge because its the go to sport for the affluent. Come, get wasted, smoke a cigar, then we will close a deal. Only place I can think of where it is socially accepted to be hammered, driving around a motorized vehicle and smoking all before noon. I suck at the game but Im good at the rest.

 

[mcleex]

They haven't made that decision yet. At some point, it will be put up for a vote by the owners. From what I've heard, Bettman is on board with continuing to send them.

Ok but why

 

[peety16]

Stand corrected.

I wonder what our fall and spring sports are

Fishing in the spring and hunting in the fall... easy

 

[Deuce Awesome]

Fishing in the spring and hunting in the fall... easy

I propose our next currency change instead of Lizzy on the notes we have a collage of a lacrosse net, hockey stick, gun and pickerel. That would be sweet.

 

[BruinLVGA]

Elliotte Friedman ‏@FriedgeHNIC 3m
Bettman said that 20 years ago, he asked former IOC President Samaranch about putting hockey in Summer Games, but IOC was not interested.

https://twitter.com/FriedgeHNIC/status/435683039520096256

This surely must have been a joke, even Bettman can't be that stupid.

 

[Tricolore#20]

This surely must have been a joke, even Bettman can't be that stupid.

Ridiculous for sure, given that a hockey arena would have to be built at a summer venue.

But the 1920 Summer Olympics included ice hockey, so it isn't without precedent.

 

[radapex]

Ridiculous for sure, given that a hockey arena would have to be built at a summer venue.

But the 1920 Summer Olympics included ice hockey, so it isn't without precedent.

Not only did the 1920 Summer Olympics include ice hockey - that's where ice hockey made its first Olympic appearance.

 

[BruinLVGA]

It's always the owners...there wallet gets a little thinner when the NHL shuts down for 2 weeks and they're not getting their $300 a seat and $10 a beer money but it's okay to shut the NHL down for half a season because players contracts are too high(which the teams signed them to begin with)

I agree!

It's even worse though: the NHL season still remains as is (82 games regular season + 4 series of playoffs), so they still get their $300 a seat and $10 beer money!
If one thinks about it, it's just a damned pause of 2 weeks and nothing else. Yet, somehow, the owners are so against about it.

 

[BruinLVGA]

Ridiculous for sure, given that a hockey arena would have to be built at a summer venue.

But the 1920 Summer Olympics included ice hockey, so it isn't without precedent.

I didn't know that, thanks for the info.

I checked into it and it was a bit of an anomaly: the games themselves were held from August 20th to September 20th, but the ice hockey portion was held between April 23rd and April 29th. Weird.

 

[Jussi]

NHL acting like this is completely in line with forbidding Y-tube compilations made by fans. Free and excellent publicity must be bad, right.

Hey, protecting the rights of NHL broadcasters is good. Protecting the rights of Olympic broadcasters is bad.

 

[LadyJet26]

They haven't made that decision yet. At some point, it will be put up for a vote by the owners. From what I've heard, Bettman is on board with continuing to send them.

Why should the owners have any say at all? I'm sorry, but this is a decision that should be solely left up to the players. Country pride >>>>>> a career that may end tomorrow. The owners don't lose any money and it's rare that their star players get injured at the Olympics. Zetterberg's back has been an issue for quite some time and backs are funny. You could pick up a cracker ala Brent Sopel and be sidelined for the rest of the season.

 

[Theokritos]

There were no Summer Olympics in 1920, it was just THE Olympics back then.

 

[AHB*]

I love Daly's response....he's a joke politician.

"As a practical business matter, for the clubs individually, the Olympics have no tangible positive effect," Daly said. "Certainly for the visibility of ice hockey, which is kind of good, big-picture, for the National Hockey League, it's good. Given all the pros and cons, we made a determination that on balance it was more positive to be here than negative, and that's why we're in Sochi."

True, you can't measure what business the Olympics brings in to the NHL, but lets be realistic here. Once every four years, hockey is the most important sport on earth. A preliminary round matchup was on the front and back of almost every national paper in the US this weekend.

The highest ratings in NBCS history for a hockey game. Do you think all those people watching are hockey fans, no. Maybe they will go to a game now, maybe they will go to many.

TJ Oshie has 200,000 more followers and counting.

The exposure is what matters. Do you think fans of the game are going to stop watching the NHL because Erik Karlsson gets injured in a game, no. You can only gain. Maybe a handful of people will stop watching because of an injury to a specific player.

There are no negatives to being there. Literally none. They are gaining fans. Everyone at work is talking about how that was the greatest sporting event they've seen in their lives (the US Russia game on Saturday).

I'm one of maybe a handful of real hockey fans in my office (which is A LOT of people). Today, the talk is hockey. It's only hockey. No one cares about what the Knicks did. All i hear is TJ Oshie.

You can't buy that kind of publicity.

 

[MuckOG]

Why should the owners have any say at all? I'm sorry, but this is a decision that should be solely left up to the players. Country pride >>>>>> a career that may end tomorrow. The owners don't lose any money and it's rare that their star players get injured at the Olympics. Zetterberg's back has been an issue for quite some time and backs are funny. You could pick up a cracker ala Brent Sopel and be sidelined for the rest of the season.

The players have no say because it wasn't collectively bargained. The owners control the NHL schedule.

 

[haveandare]

I love Daly's response....he's a joke politician.



True, you can't measure what business the Olympics brings in to the NHL, but lets be realistic here. Once every four years, hockey is the most important sport on earth. A preliminary round matchup was on the front and back of almost every national paper in the US this weekend.

The highest ratings in NBCS history for a hockey game. Do you think all those people watching are hockey fans, no. Maybe they will go to a game now, maybe they will go to many.

TJ Oshie has 200,000 more followers and counting.

The exposure is what matters. Do you think fans of the game are going to stop watching the NHL because Erik Karlsson gets injured in a game, no. You can only gain. Maybe a handful of people will stop watching because of an injury to a specific player.

There are no negatives to being there. Literally none. They are gaining fans. Everyone at work is talking about how that was the greatest sporting event they've seen in their lives (the US Russia game on Saturday).

I'm one of maybe a handful of real hockey fans in my office (which is A LOT of people). Today, the talk is hockey. It's only hockey. No one cares about what the Knicks did. All i hear is TJ Oshie.

You can't buy that kind of publicity.

Well said.

I've noticed the same things the past few days. Everyone is a hockey fan and hockey is the only sport that matters all of a sudden. It's kind of crazy since hockey is almost never talked about with most of these people save for maybe the cup finals being mentioned in passing.

A lot of people, and the NHL people, talk in business terms about how this isn't good for the NHL, but in strictly economic terms, it's very good. As you said, you can't buy this kind of publicity. And it costs them absolutely nothing. They still play 82 games plus playoffs, and get all the same revenue opportunities as usual. Players might get hurt, but I haven't ever seen anything to suggest that injuries to specific players make tangible differences in bottom lines.

If this surge in interest isn't translating to revenue, the NHL needs to actually put some thought into how to monetize this instead of sitting around and whining about it. They're very good at pouting and stalling, as we saw last year, but they seem to struggle with being proactive about anything. Call an ad agency and get to work to try to make something out of this free opportunity. Instead, they're only reaction is that they're thinking about not going next year. So stupid.

 

[radapex]

Well said.

I've noticed the same things the past few days. Everyone is a hockey fan and hockey is the only sport that matters all of a sudden. It's kind of crazy since hockey is almost never talked about with most of these people save for maybe the cup finals being mentioned in passing.

A lot of people, and the NHL people, talk in business terms about how this isn't good for the NHL, but in strictly economic terms, it's very good. As you said, you can't buy this kind of publicity. And it costs them absolutely nothing. They still play 82 games plus playoffs, and get all the same revenue opportunities as usual. Players might get hurt, but I haven't ever seen anything to suggest that injuries to specific players make tangible differences in bottom lines.

If this surge in interest isn't translating to revenue, the NHL needs to actually put some thought into how to monetize this instead of sitting around and whining about it. They're very good at pouting and stalling, as we saw last year, but they seem to struggle with being proactive about anything. Call an ad agency and get to work to try to make something out of this free opportunity. Instead, they're only reaction is that they're thinking about not going next year. So stupid.

I think the thing that draws so many people to hockey in the Olympics is that it's one of the few events that's actually run tournament style. There are all kinds of races and heats, but not many that have a multi-day multi-game preliminary round followed by a week-long playoff round.

 

[DoyleG]

It would be a shame, but remember, the NHL has a contingency plan in place. The World Cup of Hockey will in essence replace the Olympics as the global stage for the best players in the world to compete and represent their countries.

Some of you might be too young to remember, but before NHL players competed in the Olympics in 1998, the Canada Cup was the most prestigious and popular international tournament in the world for decades, and provided some of my greatest hockey memories when I was growing up. I don't see why the World Cup can't evolve in a similar manner if the NHL no longer participates in the Olympics.

The political and social setups that made it successful no longer exist that supported the Canada Cup.

The World Cup was nothing more than an NHL glory tournament that meant nothing to the fans.

 

[patnyrnyg]

I kind of changed my opinion on this. I understand that shutting down the NHL for 3 weeks is not ideal, but the Olympics does help grow the game.

The USA/Russian game got a ton of attention from the American media. Oshie has gained around 70,000 twitter followers since his shootout. You can't tell me an NHL player getting this much attention from various media outlets isn't good for the game.

In 3 months, no non-nhl fan will remember his name. To all of those people he will be known as, "The guy who scored all those one-on-one goals against Russia".

 

[patnyrnyg]

Maybe the NHl should finally realize that it is not the center of the world.

For gods frigging sake the Stanley Cup finals only create a pathetic 6 million TV viewers in the USA. The NHL is a fringe sport everywhere outside of North America and even in the USA hardly anybody seems to give a ****. 6 million of a population of 320 Million. That's horrible.

Hell even in Canada 4 only million people watch the Stanley Cup Finals.

The NHl seriously needs a relity check.

They are the biggest/best hockey league in the world, so yes, they are the center of the hockey world. This is the 5th time the NHL has participated in the Olympics. I am willing to bet the league has done a lot more research to determine how much the Olympics actually helps them. Thinking they did a lot more than the simple speculation done in this thread. Simply saying, "35 million people watched the gold medal game in 2010, that had to create more hockey fans.." really does not prove the Olympics are good for the NHL. They are a business first and foremost, and they need to do what THEY feel is best for their business. Not what a bunch of whiny fans say on a message board.

 

[patnyrnyg]

Its simple. What are the wievership figuers for Olympic matches compared to the NHL matches in NA?

Not a realistic comparison. There is ONE US team and ONE Canadian team. So, you will have the entire country watching their games. NHL has 23 teams in the US and 7 in Canada. A fair comparison would be to compare the average cummalitve ratings for a day compared to the US or Canada games. It is the same argument when people say that Golf and tennis get better ratings. The best golfers and tennis players are all playing in the same tournaments and there is only one tournament every few weeks. So of course, all the golf and tennis fans will be watching the one tournament taking place.

 

[saskatoon84]

I agree!

It's even worse though: the NHL season still remains as is (82 games regular season + 4 series of playoffs), so they still get their $300 a seat and $10 beer money!
If one thinks about it, it's just a damned pause of 2 weeks and nothing else. Yet, somehow, the owners are so against about it.

Well the problem is timing more or less. Olympics games are usually held during the time of year when they have only NBA of other major sports league to compete with. So I imagine this is the time when they make most of their money (at least those teams that are in smaller market areas and those that don't make into playoffs). Also the possible injuries this time of year hurt the most because playoffs so fairly close.