It’s amateur hour over at the NHL lately, as the commissioner and team owners have unilaterally decided that they will spurn the IOC and not allow the league’s players to suit up for their countries at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
The sting of that decision was felt across Canada, although the pain quickly receded in many regions of the country as hockey fans threw themselves right back into the NHL to cheer on their teams in the playoffs. We’ve got no such Stanley Cup concerns here in Vancouver, so let’s revisit the decision and figure out how we got here.
It’s a twisted story with a lot of interested parties, so let’s break it down with some definitions of the key players and concepts that led to this point.
Olympic hockey: This is hockey in its purest form, played at breakneck speed and high skill with no need for the seedier parts of the game such as fighting and Gary Bettman. For many years Olympic hockey was played by “amateurs,” until 1998 when the contest was opened up to elite professional players, as well as Rob Zamuner. These tournaments unite our country: more than half of all Canadians tuned in to the Olympic men’s gold medal final during the 2010 Olympics, making it the most-watched TV broadcast in our history.
Gary Bettman: Classified as a simple “nuisance rodent” by the American Society of Sniveling Stuff (ASSS), the Gary Bettman is much more vilified in Canada where researchers have accused it of stealing our most valuable resources and moving them to Freaking Glendale Arizona. No Canadian team has won the Stanley Cup since the first year this socially awkward member of the weasel family became commissioner of the NHL 24 years ago.
Bettman is often credited with “growing the game” during his time in charge, although motion cameras also caught him last night digging through my compost bin.
NHL owners: A pack of distinguished gentleman headlined by the guy that was just accused of offering a Brazilian model a movie role in exchange for sex. These guys worked countless minutes to inherit their fortunes from their fathers and they’ll be darned if they’re going to risk any of their hard-earned Crosbys for something as trivial as the collective enjoyment of millions of enthralled fans around the globe watching brilliant hockey.
The IOC: The International Olympic Committee is a sexy male model who you’ll meet online and fall madly in love with. When he finally comes to visit you in real life he’ll take you out to the finest hotel, share with you the finest champagne, and wear you out with two straight weeks of the finest two-man luge. Then he’ll burn your house down and send you a hotel bill for $5.6 billion.
No one can resist the IOC’s charms. No one, it seems, except for Gary Bettman, who obviously hates all winter sports, particularly ice hockey.
Amateurism: Pure sport conducted by pure gentlemen with pure urine samples. Also: pure B.S. Forget for a moment the state-sponsored Soviet hockey teams that made a mockery of the sport’s “amateur” rules for decades; the concept of amateurism has been a sham from the start. Amateur ideals supposedly began with the original Olympics, but historians have concluded that ancient Greek jocks loved getting paid for their feats of strength, sometimes winning prizes such as – and I’m not making this part up – huge vats of olive oil that were worth a small fortune. The concept of amateurism as we know it is less about ancient Greece and more about British upper class twits being really bad at sports. Tired of losing to peasants, the aristocrats created “amateur” rules that forbade anyone who worked for a living from competing in their games. Who works for a living? Everyone! Except for upper class twits. Game, set and match for the Duke of Suckington!
NHLPA: The world’s best players are the most important people in the sport (aside from those super cool team owners). Through their players’ association, the NHL’s star attractions voiced their collective displeasure about being denied their Olympic dreams. Hey guys, you’re grown-ups – why don’t you just go?
The fans: Lol, I said we were going to discuss the “key players” in this situation. No one cares what the fans think. All we can do is make it known how important this tournament is to us and reinforce to the players that it is worth the effort and strife to keep fighting to get there. Maybe we can sweeten the deal for them a little bit. Got any spare olive oil?
