(Photo by SportsMint Media/Google Images)
The National Hockey League and the Players Association have announced that the players will not participate in the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing, China. scheduled from February 4th through the 20th.
The NHL had until January 10th to opt-out of the Winter Olympics without financial penalty. The league could reschedule games for February while its players, that collectively represent 18 different countries, would have competed in the Olympics. The NHL had already significantly altered its regular season schedule by postponing 50 games, including 32 total within the past week, as well as twelve cross-border games.
Today the league began a pause on its season until December 26th due to rising cases of the COVID-19 Omicron variant.