NHL Players Are Back In The Winter Olympics — What Does It Mean For The NHL And Its Players?

Hockey fans around the world are eagerly anticipating the Olympic hockey tournaments scheduled to start in Milan, Italy on February 5th (women) and February 11th (men). The women’s gold medal game will take place on the 19th with the men’s gold medal decided (as the final event of the 2026 Winter Olympic Games) on Sunday February 22nd.

The men’s tournament, the focus of this article, continues a long history of Olympic ice hockey. In fact, men’s ice hockey (seven aside; no substitutions) debuted at the 1920 Summer Games in Antwerp, Belgium.

Yes, you read that correctly, they were originally part of the Summer Games.

The reason, of course, was that the Winter Olympics didn’t exist yet. Those Games officially launched (the first winter Olympiad) in Chamonix, France in 1924 with men’s ice hockey as part of the program. Women’s ice hockey debuted in 1998 in Nagano, Japan.

Over its 126-year history, men’s hockey gold medal has been won by seven different countries, with Canada and the Soviet Union (later the Unified Team) each winning nine times, the US and Sweden twice and Finland, Czech Republic, and Great Britain once. Notably, the US has won silver eight times.

As an interesting side note, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) opened the Games to professional athletes in 1986, with the NHL allowing its players to participate from 1998 to 2014 and, after a 12-year pause, now again in 2026.

That means there have been five Games that included NHL players with the sixth slated to happen in Milan. One cannot underestimate how much attention this will bring to the NHL as the world’s best play for their respective countries (except Russia, which was banned in October 2023 following a suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee by the IOC for that country’s invasion of Ukraine.

Some highlights of the past Games include:

In the NHLers debut at the Games, Team Canada, led by 37-year-old Wayne Gretzky, playing in his only Olympic Games, does not medal. The Canadians lost in a semi-final shootout to the Czech Republic, who captured Gold behind Dominik Hasek’s extraordinary goaltending. A common controversy, still debated today, was head coach Marc Crawford’s decision not to select Gretzky for the game’s epic shootout.

This tournament marked the beginning of the USA-Canada rivalry in major tournaments played by NHL players. Canada beat the U.S. to take gold with fan interest generating the highest television audience to date in Canada and the 2nd most watched hockey game (after the infamous 1980 Miracle on Ice) in Lake Placid. Sponsor interest, ticket prices and merchandise sales were all positive indicators North Americans loved this rivalry.

The growth of elite global ice hockey was on display as both Canada and the US failed to medal. Sweden (gold), Finland (silver), Czech Republic (bronze), and Russia (4th) all finished ahead of the two favorites. Risk for the NHL was on full display at these games as Dominik Hasek – the star of the 1998 Games – suffered a serious leg injury during the Games and missed the rest of the NHL season. Hasek was playing for the Ottawa Senators at the time, early Stanley Cup favorites, prior to his injury.

A repeat of 2002 games with Canada beating the Americans in overtime following a gold medal game (with a last minute regulation goal) few will forget. Like 2002, television ratings were record-setting in both countries and fan interest soared following Sydney Crosby’s magical (golden) goal.

Canada won Gold again, this time beating Sweden, with host Russia devastated by a quarterfinal loss to Finland (which later took bronze by beating the U.S. 5-0).

The above may stand as a historical review of outcomes but let’s dig into the business side a bit. It is a story of risk, reward and indirect benefits but not a clear one.

1. For the IOC, having NHL players is always a win. When the NHL’s best play, men’s hockey is the premier event of the Winter Games. It attracts global audiences, encourages people to travel and buy tickets, incites sponsor activation and generates massive visibility for the game.

2. For the fans in the 12 qualifying countries, it matters. Avid NHL aficionados love watching the best athletes compete for their country. The equivalent? Soccer’s best in the FIFA World Cup or NBA players in the Summer Olympics.

3. For the players, it depends who gets asked. For the stars getting to play for their country, it’s the opportunity of a lifetime since it creates enhanced branding plus a chance to increase value for products they endorse. For most NHL players (who don’t go), they get time off mid-season (thus helping with injury recovery or fatigue) but it also extends the NHL season well into June.

4. For the NHL (and perpetually worried owners), the business benefits are mostly ‘indirect’ but, as noted with the Hasek example above, the risk of player injury is very real. Further, insurance and travel costs are not trivial. Note, that by ‘indirect’, we mean Games revenues do not accrue directly to the NHL but instead intangibly via the appeal of the game and interest in the NHL.

5. The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), the global entity that curates ice hockey has been an advocate for NHL participation and, when it happens, clearly benefits. IOC revenues are shared with the IIHF (as they are with all international federations). Notably, the deal that finalized the NHL’s participation in the 2026 Games was led by the IIHF, helped enormously by the IOC and NHL. The 2026 deal sets the stage (but with no guarantees) for NHL participation in 2030.

We’ll close by simply noting that from a fan standpoint, having NHL players in the Winter Olympics is good for NHL business worldwide. It creates greater familiarity of the League’s best and ultimately breaks up the long NHL season with a fantastically parochial tournament.

We can’t wait for the lads to lace ‘em up.

Norm O’Reilly is the dean of the University of New England’s College of Business and Partner with the T1 Agency. Rick Burton is the David B. Falk Emeritus Professor of Sport Management at Syracuse University and co-host of The NIL Clubhouse on Spotify and Apple. They are co-authors of Business the NHL Way, published by the University of Toronto Press.