A quick look at this weekend’s pockmarked schedule alone - which saw the Maple Leafs’ Saturday-Sunday back-to-back in Vancouver and Seattle pushed to future dates, and five of Saturday’s 10 games postponed - suggested that if something doesn’t change soon, the league will be able to make an easy case that it needs the three-week Olympic break to make up for lost time.įor Eric Fehr, the former Leafs centreman, that can only mean one thing: Now more than ever, it’s important he stay ready.
While NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has said he’ll leave it to the players to decide if they travel to Beijing, the league has reserved the right to nix Olympic participation if the NHL schedule is materially impacted by COVID-related havoc. Heck, at this rate the Olympics themselves can’t be considered a sure thing. This article was published (590 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.Īs the NHL postponements pile up and COVID’s latest wave proliferates, hockey-loving Canadians are watching a long-dreaded possibility emerge as a seemingly inevitable reality: The dream of NHL players competing at February’s Beijing Olympics, if it’s not yet dead, is quickly fading. Free Press 101: How we practise journalism.
