Who Says No to Olympic Hockey?

Feb. 20, 2014 7:23 p.m. ET

The winners of the past four Olympic men’s hockey tournaments, in which the NHL participated: Sidney Crosby and Canada in 2010. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

After 12 hours in the air watching terrible movies, I arrived back in New York City to the Wednesday bummer from Sochi: the Russian men’s hockey team had been eliminated by Finland. I’d missed the game, but I’d been at the Winter Games long enough to know what that result was: a gut punch to the home country. The formidable Russian hockey team may not have been a lock for gold—Canada and the U.S. would surely have something to say—but massive hopes had been pinned to a strong performance by the host. A quarterfinal bounce? Not in the script.
The photograph of the day was a shot of the crestfallen Olympic mascot bear, sitting in the stands at the Bolshoy Ice Dome, sad face buried in a claw. A disconsolate nation searched for answers. The Journal’s Anton Troianovski reported on an extraordinary postgame exchange between Russian journalists and the placid Russian hockey coach, Zinetula Bilyaletdinov.
Reporter: What future, if any, do you see for your own work and for your coaching staff? Because, you know, your predecessor was eaten alive after the Olympics—
Bilyaletdinov: Well then, eat me alive right now—

The winners of the past four Olympic men’s hockey tournaments, in which the NHL participated: Henrik Lundqvist of Sweden in 2006. Associated Press

Reporter: No, I mean—
Bilyaletdinov: Eat me, and I won’t be here anymore.
Reporter: But we have the world championship coming up!
Bilyaletdinov: Well then, there will be a different coach because I won’t exist anymore, since you will have eaten me.
A John Tortorella scrum, reimagined by Samuel Beckett.

These games mean something heavy. Hockey has provided extraordinary theater in Sochi—Thursday night, the U.S. women lost an overtime heartbreaker to arch-nemesis Canada, the difference between gold and silver as close as the post of an open net. On Friday the U.S. men have an opportunity to avenge the women’s team loss—and their own gold-medal game defeat at the 2010 Vancouver Games—in their semifinal against pre-Olympic favorite Canada.
There is nothing exhibition-like about Olympic hockey; the stakes are real, the losses agonizing. On the men’s side, there have been thrillers throughout: that U.S.-Russia preliminary game last Saturday felt anything but preliminary. Vladimir Putin watching from the balcony? T.J. Oshie’s dramatic game-winner in a shootout? Nobody was going to be eliminated. But the intensity was exquisite.

The winners of the past four Olympic men’s hockey tournaments, in which the NHL participated: the Czech Republic in 1998 Associated Press

But of course, to love hockey is to know how hockey can sometimes get in hockey’s own way.
The NHL is said to be reconsidering its place in Olympic hockey, wondering if it’s all worth it. It took a lot of wrangling just to get to Sochi. In 2018 the Games are heading to Pyeongchang, South Korea. An alternative has been discussed: a hockey World Cup, which it did in 1996 and 2004. Maybe hockey does both. Or maybe not.
It’s easy to see the headache of the Olympics for the NHL: The league shuts down for a couple of weeks; it loans its best talent out for exhausting travel and meaningful games, and there’s always a risk of injury (John Tavares, whose day job is with the New York Islanders, injured a knee in Team Canada’s 2-1 win over Latvia on Wednesday, and is expected to be lost for the season). Meanwhile, the NHL and its players do not realize any profits from the Games, while the International Olympic Committee and its sponsors reap the benefits of a world-class tournament.

The winners of the past four Olympic men’s hockey tournaments, in which the NHL participated: Canada in 2002 Sports Illustrated/Getty Images

As with most things, money and control seem to be the issues here. And the NHL is not alone in its mixed feelings; there are NBA voices who feel the same way about the Summer Olympics and basketball, and basketball doesn’t even see its season interrupted. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has been very vocal about the idea that the Olympics profiteer heavily off the U.S. “Dream Team” and its celebrity lineup.
And yet it’s hard to witness the exuberance around Olympic hockey and not feel something significant would be lost. As television, it’s spectacular entertainment, and a ratings colossus. More than 27 million U.S. viewers tuned into the U.S.-Canada 2010 gold-medal game, more than three times the audience that tuned into Game 7 of the Stanley Cup the next year. And no domestic hockey game in history has ever had the reach of the U.S.’s 1980 Olympic upset of the Soviet Union in Lake Placid, which may not have had U.S. pros but continues to carry a long, influential shadow.
So here comes the U.S. and Canada, one more time—not for everything, but almost. The pinnacle of the game, at the pinnacle of sports. A must-watch moment for both the rabid and casual fan. Olympic hockey might not be perfect, but sometimes an imperfect thing is too good to be messed with.
Write to Jason Gay at Jason.Gay@wsj.com

Originally posted here: Who Says No to Olympic Hockey?