Wilderness Walk: Olympic Ban

Wilderness there is no new stories for the Wild specifically, but the Stanley Cup Final continues and teams and fans are clearly looking ahead to the Entry Draft and the Expansion Draft. The only real surprise about the lack of Wild news is no updates on the situation with Scott Stevens. Although it would be mighty fast to have found a replacement for the assistant coach, I was hoping there might be a rumor or two about where Chuck Fletcher and Bruce Boudreau were looking for a replacement.

One piece of a news that hasn’t received much attention is the NHL’s ban on Olympic participation. A sequel to the World Cup of Hockey has also been ruled out. Bettman and league management are attempting to foist the blame onto the players by claiming that their unwillingness to extend the current CBA resulted in the ban. Personally, I think that’s a ridiculous claim. The current CBA has nothing to do with Olympic participation or a World Cup of Hockey outside of team owners and league higher ups making it so. I understand owners not liking the risk to their stars playing in the Olympics or the effects it has on the schedule, but dragging in the CBA was their gambit. Don’t blame the players that the gambit failed.

Wild News

Nothing to see here. Move along. Move along.

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