NHL Will Not Play in the 2022 Winter Olympics

With an increase in the number of coronavirus cases in the last week, the National Hockey League announced it will not participate in the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.

The NHL and NHLPA had negotiated Olympic participation in 2022 and 2026 into the newest collective bargaining agreement after NHL players did not participate in the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. The only caveat for the Beijing Olympics, scheduled for February 2022, was if the current NHL regular season was "materially impacted" by COVID-19 postponements.

As of Dec. 21, the NHL has postponed 50 games because of outbreaks on teams and has paused its season through Christmas, apparently meeting that threshold.

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The NHL had until Jan. 10 to opt-out of Olympic participation without financial penalty and the NHLPA said it expected a decision on participation to be made before that date.

Attention will now turn to using the scheduled break for the Olympics -- Feb. 6-22 -- to reschedule games. The NHL All-Star Game is still scheduled for Feb. 5.

The Olympic rosters will now be filled by a combination of amateur players and professionals playing in leagues outside of the NHL.

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