Winter Olympics Special: The consequences of the NHL’s no-show with Matt Larkin

Alasdair Hooper hosts the sixth SportSpiel Winter Olympics special as we tick down to PyeongChang 2018 in style.

On this episode Alasdair is joined by the Associate Senior Writer of The Hockey News Matt Larkin to delve into the National Hockey League’s decision to refuse to allow players to participate in this year’s Winter Olympics.

NHL players had been allowed to represent their countries for the last five games but, back in April 2017, the league took the decision not to allow them to compete this time around.

From the players’ perspective the decision was not well received and the full extent of the fallout is yet to be seen.

In this episode Alasdair and Matt go through the motives behind the NHL no-show and they also look at the potential problems that could arise for league executives and star players – could a lockout be on the cards?

Matt also gives us the lowdown on what we can expect in this year’s ice hockey tournament and who we should be keeping an eye on.

(Image credit: Matt Larkin Twitter with thanks)