TORONTO (AP) — NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and NHL Players’ Association executive director Donald Fehr offered competing visions Sunday on the likelihood that NHL players will attend the next Winter Olympics.
Speaking ahead of the Centennial Classic, Bettman reiterated that NHL owners were reluctant to return for a sixth consecutive Olympics. Fehr, on the other hand, said he was “more optimistic now than I ever have been” that players would go to South Korea in 2018.
Fehr said he was confident that a deal would be reached with the International Ice Hockey Federation and the International Olympic Committee that would allow for that possibility.