The NHL is sending its players back to the Winter Olympics for the first time since 2014, formally committing to the next two men's ice hockey tournaments in an agreement with the International Olympic Committee.
The announcement was part of a larger international schedule rolled out by the NHL and the NHLPA that includes a four-team midseason tournament called the 4 Nations Face-Off in 2025, with games played in the U.S. and Canada.
"We know how important international competition is to our players. We know they love and want to represent the countries from which they're from," said NHL commissioner Gary Bettman on Friday at the NHL All-Star Weekend. "We think this is a great stage for the best on the best, in the best sport."
The Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games are scheduled to be held Feb. 6-22, 2026, in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy. The 2030 Games don't officially have a host, but France is considered the front-runner.
The commitment to the 2026 Olympics comes after long and sometimes turbulent negotiations.
Bettman said the negotiations turned on the players' "big ticket" items being taken care of, like insurance and travel and accommodation costs for players.
"We're not responsible for any of the major costs," said Bettman.
IIHF president Luc Tardif said it will be a "team effort" between the IIHF and the IOC to figure out how to pay for those costs, and that the Olympic committees and sport federations of each country will help foot the bill.
Bettman had also expressed concerns about the slow arena construction for the hockey venue in 2026. He said that was to help encourage the pace to pick up.
"We have been given assurances that the building will be ready, and we're relying on those assurances," said Bettman.
The NHL also believes that the league will have better "content access" from the IOC than in previous tournaments, which has also been a point of contention between the sides.
The NHL participated in five consecutive Olympics starting in 1998. The streak was broken when the NHL opted not to send players to the Pyeongchang 2018 Olympics. That was due to a change in terms with the league's agreement with the IOC and also because "the overwhelming majority of our clubs" were "adamantly opposed" to disrupting the 2017-18 season for the Olympic Games in South Korea, according to Bettman.
The 2020 Collective Bargaining Agreement formalized a commitment by the NHL and the NHLPA to participate in both the 2022 and 2026 Winter Olympics, with that participation "subject to negotiation of terms acceptable to each of the NHL, NHLPA, and IIHF (and/or IOC)."
Despite that agreement, the NHL again opted out of the Beijing 2022 Games, citing "a profound disruption to the regular-season schedule caused by recent COVID-related events" during the pandemic.
"We made it. It was not easy. That's really important. Two years of work and really intense for the last six months. We learned to work together," said Tardif. "We have a new process. Outside the Olympic Games, why not work further [together]?"
Tardif said he hoped the NHL would continue to send players through the 2034 Winter Olympics, which are widely expected to be played in Salt Lake City.
In addition to the Olympics, the NHL and NHLPA are holding the 4 Nations Face-Off, a four-team tournament in February 2025 featuring teams representing the U.S., Canada, Sweden and Finland. It will be held in one city in the U.S. and one city in Canada.
"Canada vs. the U.S. It doesn't get any better than that in hockey," said Edmonton Oilers star Connor McDavid.
The 2025 NHL 4 Nations Face-Off will consist of a total of seven games played over a nine-day period from Feb. 12 to 20, along with two designated training/practice days (Feb. 10 and Feb. 11). Each team will be comprised of 20 skaters and three goalies, selected by each national association: Hockey Canada, Finnish Ice Hockey Association, Swedish Ice Hockey Association and USA Hockey.
Players must be under an NHL contract for the 2024-25 season and on an NHL roster as of Dec. 2, 2024. All roster announcement dates will be made by the NHL and NHLPA, with each of the participating national associations selecting its initial six players this summer, prior to selecting its complete rosters later in the year.
All games in the 2025 NHL 4 Nations Face-Off will be played in accordance with NHL rules. Each team will play three tournament games in a traditional round-robin format, under the following points system: 3 points for a win in regulation time; 2 points for a win in overtime/shootout; 1 point for a loss in overtime/shootout; and 0 points for a loss in regulation time.
The two teams with the best tournament record will then advance to a one-game championship final.
NHL All-Star Weekend will not be held in the 2024-25 season.
Bettman said this is the start of an international schedule that would see NHL players participate in an international tournament or World Cup of Hockey and then the Olympics every two years. The hope is to play the next full World Cup in 2028. The last World Cup of Hockey was an eight-team event held in Toronto in 2016.
Russia's status for the Olympics and the World Cup remains uncertain. The IIHF has banned teams from Russia and Belarus from international tournaments since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, including the 2023-24 season.
Tardif said Russia's status for the 2026 Olympics is still up in the air, saying the IIHF reconsiders Russia's status on a "year by year" basis based on the current geopolitical climate.