If The NHL Doesn't Send Players To The Olympics, They Should Just Have Their Own Here In North America
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If there's anything we've learned over the past 20 months, it's that you don't necessarily need to be in a specific location in order to do something. All you need is a Zoom account and some internet connection and then you can do pretty much anything from pretty much anywhere. So if the NHL doesn't love the idea of sending their players to China in the middle of the season to play in the Olympics?
No big deal. Just Zoom that shit in from North America.
I get it's not exactly the same, but in this day and age we should have the technology available to make it close enough. If you REALLY need to, just get a bunch of nerds to figure out how to project a bunch of holograms of the games into the arena in China. But if the league doesn't want to send their players to the Olympics, then just send the Olympics to the league.
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Every option should still be on the table right now as to how to get NHL players in the Olympics. Because I simply cannot sit here and let another 4 years go to waste with another Olympic hockey tournament that doesn't have NHL talent. I know we all tried to trick ourselves into thinking Pyeongchang would be fine. But you don't remember a single thing about the 2018 men's Olympic hockey tournament and you know it. Those games have all been completely wiped from your memory. Not a single one of them stood out to you. And we can't let that happen again.
Obviously beggars can't be choosers. But if it's possible, I'd also like the games to be played at the same time they'd originally be scheduled for in China. There's something special about waking up in the middle of the night to watch an international hockey game halfway across the world. There are only so many 7pm puck drops I can deal with. But you wake me up with USA vs Canada on the menu for breakfast? Hell yeah, brother.
So I can understand the league not wanting to send its players to China for a couple of weeks. That place sucks. But Gary Bettman can't rob us of getting the best possible international hockey tournament again. Not this time. Not after everything we've been through.