What if the NHL stars are finally missing from Milan-Cortina 2026? Absent from PyeongChang 2018 and Beijing 2022, the players of the North American ice hockey league are due to make their big return to the Olympic Games next year. Their comeback had been announced with great fanfare in February 2024. However, doubts are beginning to arise in light of the tumultuous relations between the NHL and the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), while the long-awaited agreement has still not been signed.
The World Cup of Discord
Twelve months have passed and the participation of NHL players has still not been officially validated, according to Radio-Canada. "There is an agreement on paper, we just haven't signed it yet. There is no obstacle", believes Marty Walsh , the president of the league's players' association, according to whom it will be enough "to put our signature after having finalized everything and dotted the i's". No need to panic, but we can wonder since this suggests that everything is not yet settled. Especially since relations between the NHL and the IIHF are not at their best.
The NHL will relaunch its World Cup in 2028. Commissioner Gary Bettman has set the tone: the tournament will take place in February 2028. A call for bids will soon be launched for cities interested in hosting. And the door is clearly open to Europe... A bombshell for the IIHF and its flagship competition, the World Championships. The federation will indeed be competing on a continent and a key market for its development. Since 2009, all editions have taken place in Europe. A trend confirmed by the allocations of the next four editions to the Sweden-Denmark duo (2025), Switzerland (2026), Germany (2027) and France (2028). "There are real concerns on the IIHF side that the national league is coming to play on the toes of the World Championship by siphoning off its revenues, its visibility, and even its players playing in Europe", writes Radio-Canada.
Players, collateral victims
The IIHF has agreed to make a move toward the NHL regarding its World Cup by offering the league two options: either the tournament be held in Europe in September or October, or it be held in February but on another continent. According to Radio-Canada, the NHL rejected these ideas. The context is certainly not ideal to meet around a table and validate the final details on the participation of NHL players in the Milan-Cortina 2026 Games. The IIHF obviously wants the best hockey players on the planet to be brought together on the Olympic stage to ensure the level is as high as possible and to gain visibility with the public. But will it accept the NHL's conditions for the Olympics, paying several million dollars in travel and insurance expenses, while the league refuses to listen to it on the World Cup?
"It would contradict the nature of the discussions we have had with the IIHF to date if that were to happen", warned deputy commissioner Bill Daly. Hockey players, as always, find themselves caught up in these disagreements. "I was robbed of two Olympic Games", recently lamented Czech David Pastrnak, Boston Bruins forward, who hopes "that it will be okay this time and that I can go".Like his colleagues, the 28-year-old athlete had only been a spectator at the PyeongChang and Beijing Games, where questions of scheduling, costs and insurance had pushed the NHL to veto them.
