the Informer

A funny thing happened when USA hockey forward Ryan Kesler turned into Superman, sprawling horizontal across the ice to finish an unbelievable one-handed empty-net goal to cap off the United States’ improbable victory over host-country Canada. As the puck crept into the back of the Canadian net, and all of Canada became instantly silent, the U.S. players piled on top of Kesler behind the goal, but they weren’t the only American citizens yelling exuberantly at the top of their lungs. ESPN had the U.S. hockey team as its main story, Facebook statuses around the country shouted out for the red, white and blue, and all of a sudden, for the first time in seemingly 30 years, the United States cared about hockey. Will it last?

Although the recent success of Team USA hockey has created a jolt of energy for a dying sport, the National Hockey League has allegedly been considering taking its athletes out of the 2014 winter Olympics. Although the NHL thinks this would benefit the league, mostly because it would erase the two-week long Olympic break and remove any chance of injuries, the reality is that this move would eliminate all of the good these Olympics have accomplished.

Anyone who watched the USA-Canada hockey game knows what a treat it was. The intensity from start to finish was unbelievable. The physicality was, in a way, stunning. If the NHL is smart it would embrace these types of tournaments and use them to increase the interest in hockey in America. When you can get millions of non-hockey fans to sit down and watch a complete game, you know you have something special. Obviously the NHL is not this entertaining on a nightly basis, but people who think the NHL is never like the USA-Canada game simply have not even attempted to watch the Stanley Cup playoffs. Why would the NHL possibly want to take anything away from its sport creating unparalleled drama and entertainment on the world’s biggest stage?

The NHL must understand what taking its players out of the Olympics would do to the tournament. If NHL players were not allowed to compete on the greatest stage the world has to offer, USA hockey wouldn’t have a chance to even medal. Even if you take NHL players off the rosters of European teams like Russia and Sweden, they would still undoubtedly dominate a watered down version of Team USA. Do you really think Americans would still care about Olympic hockey if it were college kids, not professionals, getting crushed by the best talent the European leagues has to offer?

Understand this: if the NHL removes its players from the Olympics, the European nations will still have stacked rosters compared to the United States. Russia could have fielded a team of completely NHL talent but chose to add some players from the KHL, the best European, and second best league in the world. To add to the controversy, players like Ovechkin have stated in the past that although they want to continue playing in the U.S., they would seriously consider going back home to play if they were not allowed to compete in the Olympics.

Not only would this decision impact the overall interest in the Olympics, but in turn this could potentially be damaging to the NHL. As I stated above, I wouldn’t be shocked to see a greater interest in hockey after the Olympics because of the success of this tournament and the type of action demonstrated in games like the USA-Canada contest. This isn’t the Dream Team in basketball, the NHL players want to play and are willing to do anything to be given that chance. As has been proven in the past week by the young, hard-working American squad, a squad that has many similar traits of our own country, one game can spark the interest of a nation.

No matter what the NHL decides to do after the Vancouver Olympics, this tournament has been a success for the country both in hockey and in the Olympics as a whole. Even if Team USA does not medal, defeating Canada for the first time since 1960 and capturing the attention of the nation for even one night is enough to call this tournament an achievement. While Ryan Kesler’s game-clinching goal may have created a funny thing, America caring about hockey, the NHL considering taking its players out of the 2014 Olympics is no laughing matter.