NHL Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics
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The NHL is pulling out of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics

by Lorraine Carpenter

Hockey Canada has reportedly been building an alternate team that will be sent to the Games instead.

The NHL and NHL Players Association will not be sending their players to the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics amid concerns over the pandemic, particularly the spread of the virus within the league and the emergence of the Omicron variant. This decision, made public on Tuesday, was announced officially this morning.

The NHL is pulling out of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics

Another deciding factor was the reported 21-day quarantine that would be imposed on players were they to test positive for COVID-19 while overseas.

Hockey Canada has reportedly been building an alternate team that will be sent to the Games instead.

Today’s announcement follows Monday’s news that the league is suspending play as of today due to the pandemic, with practices resuming on Dec. 26 and games tentatively starting up again on Dec. 28. The NHL intends to use the two weeks that players were supposed to spend in Beijing to play postponed games.

The NHL pauses games until after Christmas.

Along with cancellations across the league over the past week and enhanced safety measures including daily testing, the Montreal Canadiens had already postponed this week’s games in New York and New Jersey and shut down the Habs practice facility in Brossard until after Christmas. They’re scheduled to play the Tampa Bay Lightning on Dec. 28, assuming that travel to Florida will be possible. A number of Habs players remain in the NHL COVID-19 protocol, namely Artturi Lehkonen, Laurent Dauphin and Mike Hoffman.

The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics are scheduled to take place from Feb. 4–20, 2022.

This article was originally published on Dec. 21 and updated on Dec. 22.

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Posted in Sports

by Lorraine Carpenter

Editor in chief
Lorraine Carpenter was born in Montreal and studied communications and journalism at Concordia. She co-founded Cult MTL in 2012 following 12 years at the now-defunct Montreal alt weekly the Mirror, where she worked in editorial as copy editor and music editor. She’s dedicated to supporting the cultural scene in Montreal.