With Canada’s 3-2 thrilling overtime victory over the U.S. in the men’s gold-medal hockey game just a few hours in the books, where does hockey fit in for the next Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia?
Yes, the sport will be on display in Sochi in 2014. But there are no guarantees that the NHL players who made the Games in Vancouver so compelling will be on the ice again in four years.
The issue, as always, is about money and control. In the case of Vancouver, the IOC, the IIHF and NBC have it; the NHL doesn’t, but wants some share of both.
"We bring in 140-plus players and we participate in the Olympics by stopping our season for two weeks, but this is the IOC's show, the broadcasters' show and the IIHF's show,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said. “There are a lot of things we don't have control over and going forward, it may be we need to be a little more involved than at least to this point we've been allowed to be."
Part of what Bettman will try to leverage for 2014 is an enhanced licensing deal to promote its players, as well as allowing the NHL and its properties more access to its players at the Olympic Games. All of which makes sense from a league standpoint, but if it ends up keeping NHL players out of the Olympics, it would lose something much bigger: exposure and a marketing platform the league cannot equal on its own.
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