OlymPicks: New Hope For Your Favorite Hockey Players to Compete in 2022?

It looks like the National Hockey League’s biggest stars might get one last shot at the most prestigious of goals: competing in the Winter Olympics.

Such prospects have looked increasingly bleak in recent months, of course. Due to an insurance and amenity costs dispute between Olympic officials and the league, the players were barred from partaking in the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea by their own governing body.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman famously, and controversially, stood firm earlier this month, explaining that the drawbacks of participating in the Games go beyond nickel and diming short terms fees, and are instead about the way the Games would throw the league’s regular playing season into disarray. That’s due to the regular hockey season being put on a hiatus in order to make time for the Olympics, a situation that Bettman calls "terribly disruptive.”

Players are understandably unhappy at being excluded from the Games, however, a solution might lie in another international sporting event. Olympic-focused news blog Inside the Games has since run an article describing how the players could potentially hold their involvement in the 2020 World Cup (not be confused with the FIFA football championship of the same name) ransom against participation in the 2022 Winter Olympic Games.

According to the article, “preliminary talks about staging a World Cup have opened and the NHL Players Association could agree to support that in return for letting its members participate in the Olympic Games.”

However, Bill Daly, the deputy commissioner of the NHL (essentially Bettman's right-hand man) said no such progress has been made yet. In fact, he told recently the AFP “There's nothing new on the subject," Daly said. "You've heard what our owners' position is on the subject. We know the players very much are in support of participating in the Olympics. We're going to have discussions between now and then and we'll see where it goes.” He is likely referring to comments being made by the likes of star player Sidney Crosby, who recently told The Sports Network “I hope we find a way to get there.”

Time is running short for that breakthrough to be made. Daly told reporters that such contract haggling will need to be sorted by early next year. "If you go past the end of January, I think it would be very difficult to plan and execute a World Cup of Hockey in 2020," Daly said.

That will give the coming weeks a feeling akin to overtime for hockey fans, as they wait with bated breath for players to finally score the points they need to compete in Beijing in 2022.

After all, it's not like the NHL has zero interest in Beijing— even as Bettman eschews the Games, he has set up high profile exhibition matches between the likes of the Boston Bruins against the Calgary Flames (pictured in the lead image above) in the Chinese capital this past fall in order to better reach that vast, untapped market.

In case you hadn't noticed, we're pretty excited for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games. Keep up with all of our coverage right here.

Photo: Getty Images (via Inside the Games)