Your prayers have been answered, hockey fans, and the NHL will officially be participating in the 2022 Beijing Olympics!
There are, of course, caveats to this agreement between the NHL and the International Ice Hockey Federation, which was formally announced on Friday. For starters, the agreement allows the NHL the ability to withdraw in the event COVID-19 conditions worsen as the league approaches their February break in the 2021-22 season. Plus, the players themselves will be heavily restricted in their movements while in Beijing, will not be covered by COVID insurance, and must be vaccinated.
And yet, for now, the NHL is back at the Olympics for the first time since Sochi in 2014 after missing out on PyeongChang nearly four years ago. This is a very exciting moment for hockey fans and all sports watchers as a whole, as men’s hockey is not the same at the Olympics without NHL players.
As such, since we’re five months and change away from the 2022 Winter Olympics, I think it’s more than reasonable to put together a way-too-early projection of what the rosters will look like for some of the major teams. These are, effectively, our dream rosters for the major hockey powerhouses in the Olympics: the United States, Canada, Russia, Sweden, and Finland.
Oh, and of course, we’ll list the notable snubs we made along the way, just for fun.
