Bettman wants to keep the NHL out of the 2014 Olympics

Continuing in the series of stupid things that NHL Commisioner Gary Bettman[wiki] is doing to grow the sport of hockey, the plan is keep players from participating in the 2014 Winter Olympics[wiki] in Russia.

The 2010 Vancouver Games could be the end of the NHL’s brief participation in Olympic hockey.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman told Reuters on Tuesday that, following Vancouver, his league may rethink its policy of suspending play in mid-season so players can compete in the Olympics.

That means the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, could be the first since the 1994 edition in Lillehammer to not feature hockey’s best men’s players.

“It is a strain. It is a strain on the players, on the schedule and on our fans here,” Bettman said at the Reuters media summit in New York.

“It has an impact on the momentum of the season and the benefits we get tend to be greater when the Olympics are in North America than when they’re in distant time zones.” [cbc]

I’m calling shenanigans on this one. Sure, the drastic difference in time zones is one thing, but the fact that the Russian Super Leagues[wiki] is consistently drawing players away from the NHL is the other half of the story.

Let’s be clear. The NHL has a salary cap, and the leagues in Russia don’t. Players can leave the NHL for more money to play in leagues that don’t have the posh superstructure that the NHL exists in, but the dollar amounts somewhat make up for it. The competition might just be as high, and the pay more than makes up for the fact that you’re not playing in the same league that Wayne Gretzky[wiki] became a legend in.

I talked about this in the latest episode of The Crazy Canucks, and we all agreed that this is nothing more than saber rattling being done by Bettman. It’s obvious that since the 2010 games are in Vancouver, there would be a huge support for having NHL players in the games when they come to the country where the sport was born. However, when the games go to the land that is stealing the league’s players away for more money, Bettman is sticking his nose up in the air.

Everything that Bettman has done with the league to this point has been, in his mind and/or words, done with the NHL’s best interest in mind. The ultimate goal is to grow the sport across the U.S. because any respectable hockey fan can tell you that a majority of profit for the league comes from Canada. The fans here love their hockey, and I live in a city that is proof to the fact.

When I think about this move, I go back to when the 1994 FIFA World Cup[wiki] came to the U.S. and how much that sparked my interest into the sport of soccer. Prior to that, my only real exposure to it was when I would go to Kansas City to visit my grandparents and see various games on Univision with the insanely entertaining announcers that spoke spanish way too fast for my comprehension.

The point is, I started liking the sport after 1994, and I still remember watching Alexi Lalas[wiki] and Cobi Jones[wiki] in that tournament. Today, when there is a game on the tube, I’ll stop and watch for a while. I’ll even download a game through bittorrent once and a while when it pops up in the various feeds I watch. There is only so much I can do when I watch a game between Manchester United and Everton to really understand the history, crowd chants, and rivalry, but I know good action when I see it, all thanks to the World Cup sparking my interest.

To me, that’s what having the best of the best from the NHL representing their country can do to grow the sport. There have been so many times in which I have heard Gary Bettman say something to the effect that something was done to help the NHL grow in terms of exposure for the sake of getting more fans, such as the choice of Versus being the TV network of choice in the U.S. How does taking players from the NHL out of the Winter Olympics make that work?

I get that there is chance of losing players to injury in the games, not forgetting that this is nearly 3/4 of the way into the season when the playoff race is close to the horizon. However, what’s the chance that you can help ride that momentum from the Olympics into the Stanley Cup Finals? For some, that might seem like a stretch, but think about that next Wayne Gretzky or Sidney Crosby who catches the games and decides to get a pair of skates the next day.

Not being in the Olympics would be a mistake, if not a missed opportunity, Mr. Bettman. It’s sad to know that a man like you can control the livelihood of a country, or even countries, just because you’re fed up with the way that another league, in another country, operates.