The NHL will announce its official return to the Olympics, according to TSN and Chris Johnston. The transfer marks the league’s first time again in the video games since 2014.
According to Johnston’s report, the announcement of the return to the 2026 Olympics in Milan will coincide with the official unveiling of the long-rumored Four Nations Tournament. The event is anticipated to happen in February 2025 and can function nationwide groups from the United States, Canada, Sweden and Finland.
The collective strikes are a part of the NHL’s push to broaden to the worldwide stage. During the annual Board of Governors assembly in December, league commissioner Gary Bettman teased the league’s need to return to worldwide play. His grand imaginative and prescient for worldwide best-on-best play begins with the Four Nations event happening over “multiple locations” internationally, serving as an appetizer for the 2026 Olympic Games. That would then be adopted up by the re-launch of the Hockey World Cup in 2028, with the plan to alternate the World Cup and Olympics each two years.
The NHL has beforehand had a combined relationship with the Olympics. The league was unable to strike a deal with the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) and International Olympic Committee (IOC) to take part in the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics. That was the first time the NHL had missed the video games since the 1994 Games in Lillehammer. While it was supposed to be a one-off miss, the NHL pulled out of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
There had been some inklings of doubt that the NHL would even take part in 2026. When initially teasing his worldwide roadmap, Bettman talked about that discussions between the NHL Player’s Association and the IIHF had been ongoing to “wrestle the arrangement for the Olympics to the ground.” The commissioner stated that development had not begun on the area wanted for the 2026 Games, calling it a “matter of concern.” However, Bettman additionally emphasised the significance of worldwide play to the league’s gamers.
The league’s push for world play will hopefully maintain the NHL’s gamers in the sport for the foreseeable future.
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