Last week, the National Hockey League ruled against sending its players to the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea.
While Monday’s announcement officially closed the matter, the debate has continued all week, with various parties chiming in.
Don Cherry joined the conversation during Saturday’s edition of Coach’s Corner on Hockey Night in Canada, saying he supports the league’s decision to not go.
“Everybody says the players—and it’s true, they want to be [in] the limelight, [on] the world stage, the whole thing,” Cherry said. “It’s OK for them—they don’t have one thing invested. They have the owners, who are paying them something like $10 million–and I’m a players guy.”
As NHL commissioner Gary Bettman reiterated in an interview on Sportsnet 590 The FAN’s Prime Time Sports on Tuesday, the owners are the ones shouldering all the risk when it comes to their players participating in the Games.
“NHL clubs don’t like having to shut down at a critical part of the season and disrupt our season for anything, let alone a situation where we’re not given an opportunity to promote our presence,” Bettman said. “Not only has it not done anything for our game, particularly here in North America where our franchises play, it’s been damaging to the seasons in terms of the competitiveness, in terms of the compression of the seasons, and injuries to players.”
Cherry agrees.
“[The owners] have got all the risk, they’ve got three weeks out of the schedule. You have your stars, and don’t forget you have five guys out of the last Olympics, starting with [John] Tavares, out. He’s out, they’re done,” Cherry said, referring to 2014 when the Islanders captain missed the rest of the NHL season after suffering an injury during the Games. “I said, the owners are right. They should not go. I’m glad they’re not going.”
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