The National Hockey League is out of the 2018 Olympics. Commissioner Gary Bettman fired off a litany of excuses on why the Board of Governors (head by Boston Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs) wouldn’t consent to let their players play in the most respected tournament on the planet.
The league just couldn’t dot all the ‘i” cross all the ‘t’ it needed to make Olympic participation possible. The owners (citing season ending injuries to several players in Sochi, and other teams sending half their squads to the Olympics, only to get knocked out in the first round) didn’t like the loss of their players.