NHL players will be returning to the Winter Olympics for the 2026 and 2030 tournaments, the league announced Friday as part of a joint agreement with the NHL Players Association, the International Ice Hockey Federation and the International Olympic Committee.
Speaking to reporters during NHL All-Star Weekend in Toronto, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman confirmed that players will be allowed to participate for the first time since the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
“We know how important international competition is to our players,” Bettman said. “We know how much they love and want to represent their countries from which they’re from, and we think this is a great stage for the best-on-best.”
The 2026 Games will take place in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, and the IOC will announce the 2030 host country in July.
NHL’s Olympic return a long time coming
NHL players participated in five straight Winter Olympics from 1998 to 2014, but concerns about marketing, insurance, travel costs and player injuries prevented the league, the NHLPA, the IIHF and the IOC from finalizing an agreement to continue for 2018 in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
For 2026, costs will be covered by the IIHF and the national federations and Olympic committees of each participating country.
Bettman said he strongly believes the NHL will have enough “content access” for player and game highlights, a big point of contention in the past. No previous Olympic highlights, such as Sidney Crosby‘s gold-medal-winning goal in overtime during the 2010 tournament, can be found on NHL.com.
“There is a recognition as to how important this is to the players and in the spirit of cooperation, particularly the work we did during COVID, everybody felt on our side it was the right thing to do,” Bettman said when asked how he got NHL owners to agree to a deal. “This really came down to doing something because the players really wanted it.”
As part of the NHL and NHLPA’s ratified Collective Bargaining Agreement in 2020, the two sides agreed to green-light participation for the 2022 and 2026 tournaments, pending an agreement with all parties, including the IIHF and IOC.
Six weeks before the 2022 Beijing Games, however, the NHL and NHLPA changed course. The COVID-19 pandemic was cited as the main reason for backing out as the league was forced to cancel 50 regular-season games at…