The NHL's 2021-2022 Schedule Draft Contains An Olympic Break

After the NHL shutdown the 2019-2020 season due to Covid-19, part of getting the league restarted in time for the September bubble involved negotiating a new Collective Bargaining Agreement between the players and the league. The agreement is essentially an understanding between the players and the team owners about the parameters of the player's contracts, as well as the rights afforded to the NHL, the NHLPA, and the league's individual teams. The NHL has the right to suspend a player for an action they deem dangerous, for example. One of the agreements included in the most recent CBA negotiations was that the NHL's players would be able to compete in the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022, as well as the 2026 Olympics in Milan.

On June 28th, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman cast doubt on the reality of that situation. "We have real concerns about whether or not it's sensible to have our players participating and us shutting down for an Olympic break."First among these concerns is no doubt the ongoing pandemic, which has calmed significantly in North America but still rages in other countries around the world. A week later Bettman was asked about the Olympics in an interview with Ron MacLean, he said it was "difficult to find insurance" for these kinds of scenarios. This came just a few days after the league's top player Connor McDavid reiterated the players' expectations of competing in Beijing.

All that fuss may have been for naught. According to Ken Campbell, the league's GMs have seen a draft of the 2021-2022 season schedule, and it includes an Olympic break in February. He says the league also has a schedule without a break but isn't showing it to anyone, the idea being the NHL thinks they're going to make the Olympics work and teams should prepare accordingly. If true, this would be the first Olympic Games to feature league stars like Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon, Auston Matthews, Andrei Vasilevskiy, and others. The league's top players haven't competed on the world's stage since Sidney Crosby scored the Golden Goal at the Vancouver Olympics in 2010.

What do you think about the NHL returning to the Olympics this February?

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