SORRY, RUSSIA

COVID-Sieged NHL Officially Pulls Players Out of Winter Olympics

The league has already canceled 44 games in the last two weeks due to the Omicron surge.

The U.S. Olympic ice hockey team will have to start scouting. The NHL announced Wednesday that it would not send any of its players to Beijing for the 2022 Winter Olympics, citing not the Chinese government’s transgressions but the worldwide Omicron COVID surge. “Unfortunately, given the profound disruption to the NHL’s regular-season schedule caused by recent COVID-related events... Olympic participation is no longer feasible,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said in a statement. “We look forward to Olympic participation in 2026.” The NHL has been devastated by the Omicron surge, canceling 44 games in two weeks and starting its holiday break early. The news will surely come as a loss to the Russian hockey team, which scratched its itch to play over the weekend while wearing Soviet-era jerseys as tensions have risen between the two nations.