Will NHL Choose Bottom Line Over National Pride?

Ice hockey will be one of the toughest tickets to get when the Vancouver Olympics open in February. The sport is guaranteed to be among the most popular, if not the top sport, in hockey-mad Canada.

Great for the sport, right? Just as the Salt Lake City Olympics were.

And yet the NHL is not committed to allowing its players to compete in the Olympics past Vancouver, prompting one of the league's best players, Alex Ovechkin, to threaten to go on his own when the Games are in Sochi, Russia, Ovechkin's home country, in 2014. Ovechkin is an ambassador for those Games, but other prominent Russian stars, such as Pittsburgh's Evgeni Malkin and Iyla Kovalchuk of the Thrashers, have expressed similar sentiments, saying they would risk penalties from the NHL in order to participate in 2014.

The NHL Players Association is strongly in support of the Games, which might be one reason the league has not made any commitment for 2014 yet -- it could be a nice bargaining chip for the NHL when the current labor deal ends in 2011.

It's hard to imagine the NHL saying no to the Olympics after four Games' worth of pros attending the Games. It would be terribly unpopular with the players and most casual hockey fans, and the league would look bad, insular and provincial -- the mean old NHL doesn't support the biggest international sporting event unless it's in North America. "The benefits of going to the Olympics when you're in Salt Lake City or Vancouver, to name two cities, are way different than if you're in Japan, Italy or Russia," commissioner Gary Bettman told the Canadian Press at the beginning of the season.

Unless we get something out of it for ourselves, stick it, rest of the world!

Are there any legitimate concerns for the league? Sure. Interrupting any sport for a few weeks presents all kinds of problems, from sheer logistics to the possibility of upsetting that season's competitive balance. Some also-rans complain about post-Olympic attendance dips, for instance, though that seems like a pretty convenient excuse: It's not unheard of for non-playoff teams to draw smaller crowds.

From a standings standpoint, though, there is no doubt that some teams will send far more players to the Olympics than others, with the Red Wings fielding half the Swedish team, for example. Would a team that sends just a few players to Vancouver have the edge over Detroit two months later when the postseason arrives?

Considering that the Swede-and-Russian-heavy Red Wings won Stanley Cups in two Olympic years, 1998 and 2002, that argument is tough to make. Plus, the simple fact is that the better the team, the more likely it is to have numerous Olympians, because just about every one of the league's stars will play in Vancouver.

That, however, raises the most legitimate issue for the league and for individual teams, plus many hard-core fans: injuries to stars. Dominik Hasek's hip injury at the Torino Olympics kept him out the rest of the season for Ottawa, and the top-seeded Senators didn't make it out of the conference semifinals. Jaromir Jagr and Joe Sakic are among those who have had high-profile injuries at Olympic Games.

But these are the Olympics, not just some made-up marketing opportunity such as the World Baseball Classic, an event that has numerous detractors because of injuries both during and after the tournament. Hasek still wants to play in the 2010 Games, as does Jagr. NHL players risk their health in international competitions from a young age; they're brought up with the belief that there is no higher honor than to represent their countries on the ice. The NHL wants to take that away?

That seems unlikely, especially after what should be a major hockey love-fest in Vancouver. What kind of Scrooge would then say, "Hey, super fantastic event. Sorry, we're not going to do that again."? It's not going to happen. Maybe the reluctance to commit has to do with the collective bargaining agreement with the union, maybe it's a reflection of the NHL's poor relationship with some of the Eastern European leagues, or maybe Bettman and Co. would like to wait and make a big whoop-de-doo deal about the NHL going to Sochi.

In the meantime, Ovechkin and the other top Russian players don't need to worry too much about chartering a small plane for 2014. The Olympic village should have plenty of pro hockey players to liven things up.