Canada’s Sochi team in jeopardy
The 2012-2013 NHL season isn’t the only issue hanging in the balance. If the ongoing lockout were to wipe out the entire season, with no Collective Bargaining Agreement for the foreseeable future, Canada may not be able to send the usual array of top NHL talent to Sochi, Russia for the 2014 Winter Olympics. Olympic participation of NHL players is an often forgotten part of the CBA talks.
The 2012-2013 NHL season isn’t the only issue hanging in the balance.
If the ongoing lockout were to wipe out the entire season, with no Collective Bargaining Agreement for the foreseeable future, Canada may not be able to send the usual array of top NHL talent to Sochi, Russia for the 2014 Winter Olympics. Olympic participation of NHL players is an often forgotten part of the CBA talks.
“It gets messy for us here,” Nicholson said from Calgary Friday, as the NHL cancelled all November games on the schedule.
“If they ever cancelled the season, then we’d really have to look at what we might do,” Nicholson said. “That, to me, is the real trigger point.
“We’d have to have two options on the table,” Nicholson said. “Right now, we only have the one, the NHLers. We’ve been doing our work with (Executive Director) Steve Yzerman, that management group and we’re all ready to roll once the season starts .
“We haven’t really looked at option B, and wouldn’t plan on doing that until into the New Year.”
Plan B would be a Canadian entry in Sochi without Sidney Crosby and the best NHL players. Instead, the team would be comprised of amateurs and lesser pros, much as Canada used to piece together prior to the Nagano Olympics of 1998.
Nicholson doesn’t want to get into the business of identifying a drop dead date for a CBA deal where Sochi is concerned.
“Rene Fasel (IIHF president) has asked me a number of times, and I’ve always said, we don’t have a date,” Nicholson said. “We don’t want to have a date sitting there so it’s a target.”
You said that a lack of a CBA would jeopardize olympic participation, but not why. Is the concern that the players wouldn’t be ready? For example, players like Sidney Crosby who are not playing hockey, although some, like Rick Nash. Is the concern a lack of legality? In which case, could you please elaborate? I was under the impression that the ability to attend the Olympics was part of the negotiated CBA. If there is no CBA them there is nothing holding back players from going to the Olympics.
If you could address the why in your article, that would be very appreciated.
Exactly, NHL participation in the Olympics IS part of the CBA. But there has to be a commitment by a certain point, otherwise the NHL opts not to go and by 2013-14, those NHL players that would have been going, ie. Crosby, Perry, Weber etc. will be back playing in the NHL. The league either commits together, or not, via the CBA. And if there is no CBA by 2013, Canada will have to put together a different kind of team at a certain point. Still very much up in the air at this time.
Thank you for your reply, but I still don’t follow.
If there is *no* CBA how could the NHL stop players from going to the Olympics?
I’m getting the impression from your article and reply that you are suggestion Olympic participation would require a CBA to allow NHL players to go. If the lockout were to continue without a CBA, wouldn’t the NHL be without any jurisdiction over any of the players? Just like now, many of them are able to go to Europe. If the lockout continued into the Olympics, I don’t think that there’s anything that the NHL could do to stop them from joining the Canadian Olympic team.
Here’s another fly in the Sochi ointment. Let’s say that some high-profile Russians such as Ovechkin and Kovalchuk follow through with threats to remain in Russia, especially if their NHL contracts are cut as a result of a new CBA. Some possible ramifications:
- The IIHF essentially suspends the Russian Ice Hockey Federation, which would cause problems with the Olympic hockey tournament and possibly lead to the cancellation of Olympic hockey;
- The IIHF does nothing, and the NHL decides not to allow its players to go to Sochi as a protest against the RIHF not accepting NHL contracts.
- But suppose Ovi and Kovy (and others) do return, but the CBA doesn’t permit players to go to Sochi…yet, Ovi et al decide they want to play for “Rodina” in “Rodina” (homeland), NHL be damned. You’ll have the IIHF getting involved there with the honoring of contracts/defected players issue all over again.
You’re right, there is potential for a huge mess. As if NHL/KHL relations weren’t bad enough, the lockout has exacerbated ill will between the two leagues to a degree not seen since the Cold War between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union. Ovechkin makes outrageous statements by the day. and in the heat of a lockout it’s difficult to take them at face value. I think a lot of the rhetoric will cool when the NHL and its players come to an agreement over a new CBA. Most, if not all, of the Russians would come back to honour their NHL deals. And, if the deal gets done in the next few months, there remains a good chance the NHL can come to an agreement about participating in Sochi.