NHL to return to Olympics, host 4 Nations Face-Off

For the first time in over a decade, the NHL will be going back to the Olympics.

During a press conference Feb. 2, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman announced the League had reached an agreement to send its players to both the 2026 and 2030 Olympic Games for the first time since 2014.

Bettman said this agreement is part of a larger push from the NHL for more international, best-on-best competition between its players. Moving forward, he said the League plans to rotate every two years between the Olympics and the World Cup of Hockey.

To jump-start that process, in place of the 2025 NHL All-Star Game, the League will host the NHL 4 Nations Face-Off - a tournament between players from the United States, Canada, Sweden and Finland. The event will be hosted Feb. 12-20 in two cities - one in the United States and one in Canada.

“We wanted to do something, but we felt that we couldn’t get ready in a year for a full-blown World Cup," Bettman said. "This gets us started and puts us on a schedule that I think everybody is not just excited about but really comfortable with.”

The last World Cup of Hockey was held in 2016, so these tournaments will be the first chance for plenty of current stars - like Edmonton's Connor McDavid and Toronto's Auston Matthews - to play for their countries on such an important stage.

“At any level, to represent your country is a big honor,” Matthews said at a press conference in Toronto. “At a world stage like the Olympics or the 4 Nations [Face-Off]…it’ll be great for the players and great for the sport, and the fans I think will really enjoy it.”

This agreement also means that more St. Louis Blues can participate in international play.

In 2014, nine players represented the Blues at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Additionally, then-head coach Ken Hitchcock was an assistant for Team Canada:

• David Backes, USA
• Patrik Berglund, Sweden
• Jay Bouwmeester, Canada
• Jaroslav Halak, Slovakia
• T.J. Oshie, USA
• Alex Pietrangelo, Canada
• Kevin Shattenkirk, USA
• Alexander Steen, Sweden
• Vladimir Tarasenko, Russia

Today, only one active Blue has Olympic experience - defenseman Justin Faulk played for the U.S. in 2014.

Now a new wave of Blues could get their chance to go for gold.

“We know how important international competition is to our players,” Bettman said. “We know how much they love and want to represent the countries from which they’re from.”