Finally, the hockey world can rejoice after so many years of waiting. Last Friday, during the NHL All-Star weekend in Toronto, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman announced that international best-on-best hockey will return for the first time since the 2016 World Cup of Hockey tournament. Eight years later, fans and players alike finally get to represent and support their men’s ice hockey teams on an international stage during the 2026 and 2030 Winter Olympics, respectively. However, these won’t be the only tournaments, as the NHL will also hold a small preview of them in 2025 as the NHL will organize a four-team tournament a year before the winter games in Milan.[1]
This mini-tournament will give the NHL, the NHLPA, and the IHF the ability to work out a few problems they undoubtedly will have when they send players to the following two Olympics. The first issue is the Russian problem. It is undeniable that some of the best hockey players in the world hail from the eastern European power, including future hall of famer Alexander Ovechkin, who may go down as the NHL’s all-time leading goal scorer when his career is over, and Igor Shesterkin, who is a year removed from winning the Vezina trophy as the NHL’s best goaltender. Fans and players would argue that any potential high-level international tournament without the Russians could be considered illegitimate; however, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the IHF banned Russia along with Belarus from all international hockey coemptions.[2]
Russia’s absence from these tournaments could have severe consequences for the NHL because, during the last negotiations of the NHL’s CBA in 2015, Russian players threatened to play international hockey regardless of the league’s decision to send players. Among these Russian players is the aforementioned Alexander Ovechkin.[3] The NHL’s solution for this problem, at least for the tournament they are organizing in 2025, is to gather the other four prominent men’s hockey powers for the tournament: Canada, Finland, Sweden, and the United States. Despite this tournament’s inevitable buzz, the question of the Russian players’ participation going forward will only grow.
Another potential issue the NHL will face with these international tournaments is the issue of drug testing. Katie Strang of The Athletic reports that “The NHLPA does survey drug testing each year, in part to determine which drugs are on the rise and in part to identify substances that are becoming a cause for concern. Testing for drugs of abuse used to be administered to only 1/3 of NHL players; the NHL and NHLPA struck a resolution in 2016 to apply the testing to all players to ensure more accurate and comprehensive results.” [4] This could be disastrous for the NHL as IOC implements WADA, an independent drug testing agency, and they conduct more rigorous drug testing than the world’s top hockey league. The strict IOC drug testing most certainly would keep the NHL brass up at night, as the same article references the worries of people close to the league about the heightened use of drugs like molly and cocaine.[5] These drugs would undoubtedly fail the strict WADA drug test, a test so challenging due to the IOC having “a zero-tolerance policy to combat cheating and hold accountable anyone responsible for using or providing doping products.”[6]
Despite these problems, the NHL is still pushing for these tournaments as a potential bargaining piece for the upcoming CBA in an attempt to earn even more money.
[1] NHL to hold 4 Nations Face-Off tournament in 2025 | NHL.com
[2] Russia, Belarus banned from international hockey world championships next season | CBC Sports
[3] nhl ovechkin wants to play international hockey – Google Search
[5] Id.
[6] Olympic Testing – WADA and the IOC Fight Against Doping (olympics.com)
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