{"id":150117,"date":"2025-09-17T16:23:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T16:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/150117\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T16:23:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T16:23:08","slug":"nhl-commissioner-gary-bettman-praises-2026-milan-cortina-games-potential-impact-on-league","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/150117\/","title":{"rendered":"NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman praises 2026 Milan Cortina Games\u2019 potential impact on league"},"content":{"rendered":"

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman is expecting the 2026 Milan Cortina Games to have a \u201cbig effect\u201d on the league with NHL players participating in the Games for first time in 12 years, according to Ian Thomas of CNBC.com. While speaking at CNBC Sport\u202fand Boardroom\u2019s Game Plan conference yesterday, Bettman said, \u201cWe decided it was important to go back and be on what is one of the most visible platforms in the world.\u201d Prior to Bettman being named commissioner in 1993, NHL players had not participated in the Olympics. NHL players began participating in 1998, but stopped after 2014. Bettman said that it was a \u201creflection of the evolution of the business of the league and the sports industry in general.\u201d Bettman said, \u201cEven though we were shut down for two weeks, our players were treated like invited guests.\u201d He added that the league and its teams \u201chad no control over anything; we didn\u2019t have the rights to promote ourselves.\u201d The NHL and NHLPA\u2019s new deal with the IOC<\/a> \u201cchanges some aspects of their commercial arrangement and also upgrades the players\u2019 living conditions while at the Games.\u201d Bettman also noted that it \u201ccame down to the desire from the players to play best-on-best at a national level\u201d (CNBC.com, 9\/16<\/a>).<\/p>\n

SURVEY SAYS: THE ATHLETIC\u2019s Michael Russo notes NHL players are \u201cmore than willing to play two more regular-season games in exchange for a 13-day training camp, fewer preseason games and no fitness testing starting in 2026-27.\u201d In a player poll conducted by The Athletic that asked their thoughts on an 84-game season<\/a>, 32 players responded, \u201cLike it\u201d while four voted \u201cHate it\u201d and three voted \u201cMixed feelings.\u201d An Eastern Conference defenseman said, \u201cMore games means more money, which means higher cap.\u201d An Eastern Conference forward said, \u201cTwo more games is not gonna be the end of the world. It\u2019s good for revenue, obviously, and the season will end earlier.\u201d However, one young Western Conference forward said, \u201cI do feel bad for young guys trying to get seen. The two less preseason games may hurt them.\u201d On another side of the argument, one Western Conference defenseman said, \u201c82 is already a lot of games\u201d (THE ATHLETIC, 9\/17<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman is expecting the 2026 Milan Cortina Games to have a \u201cbig effect\u201d on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150118,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,3915,575,85],"class_list":["post-150117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}