Jun 3, 2017 5 min read

Here we are watching hockey in June.

One year ago, the Penguins were playing in Northern California and now they’re in Tennessee. As I pointed out in this space last year, only a hockey fan whose team is in the Stanley Cup Final will be going out of his way to watch hockey on a sunny day in June and it wouldn’t be hard to set up a schedule that begins in September and ends in late April.

Last year at this time, Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and a few other Penguins were finishing up their eight-and-a half-month run to the Stanley Cup and looking ahead to the World Cup of Hockey practices six weeks later.

Hockey fans, especially in Penguins country, didn’t seem to have a problem watching countries compete in September and the success of the World Cup might have been one of the best things to happen to the NHL in a long time. It spared lots of NHL players, coaches, officials and media schlubs from spending a couple of weeks in, not mentioning having to spell, Daegwallyeong-myeon. That’s the city in South Korea where the 2018 Winter Olympics will be held.

It’s being referred to as the Pyeonchang Olympics because that’s the county where most events will take place and because Peyonchang is so much easier to say and spell than Daeqwallyeong-myeon.

Spelling and pronunciation probably didn’t have a lot do with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman saying this at his State of the League Address last week in Pittsburgh: “I know that there have been a variety of comments from either Rene Fasel of the International Ice Hockey Federation or from representatives of the players’ association suggesting that (participation in the Winter Olympics) is still and open issue. It is not and has not been. I hope that was definitive enough.”

Works for me.

The NHL participation in the Winter Olympics stopped being a good idea at least two Olympics ago. That was 2010 when Sid was still The Kid and scored the gold-medal winner for Canada. It happened in Vancouver, which meant hockey fans and non-hockey fans all over the United States and Canada were able to see it in prime time.

The ice hockey competition at the Winter Olympics is actually a series of just about the only meaningful and watchable pro all-star games left. But, it’s ridiculous for the NHL to blast a 17-day hole in its schedule in February, when there is actually still lots of frozen water to be seen in North America, to play in a tournament that was intended for and still should be for amateurs.

In case you’ve forgotten, the consensus greatest American sports story of the 20th Century involved a bunch of college kids beating a team of pros disguised as amateurs playing hockey for the Evil Empire.

If you didn’t believe in miracles before Al Michaels made that call, then you did when the buzzer went off and the American kids beat the Soviet Union.

Let the kids play again.

There’s no more Soviet Union, but Donald Trump and Vladimir Puttin have done a pretty good job of rekindling the rivalry from the bad old days.

Olympic hockey always gets good ratings and there are natural, heated rivalries among several countries that will create great story lines and great hockey without NHL players.

And new stars will be made.

If Alexander Ovechkin says he’s playing in Daeqwallyeong-myeon with or without the NHL’s permission, tell him and the Washington Capitals that he’ll be suspended for the rest of the 2018 regular season and the playoffs.

Same deal for Evgeni Malkin.

They and other Russian players made the choice to sign guaranteed contracts for big, big bucks and, unless there is a clause in their contract that allows them to skip three weeks of the season, doing what they consider their patriotic duty should not be the NHL’s problem.

Bettman said he expects all NHL players to honor their contracts next year, which would seem to overrule the idiotic decision by the Capitals to give Ovechkin permission to take time off. How do you give a Russian player your blessing and tell an American, Canadian or Swedish player that he can’t play for his country?

So, the Olympic question appears to be settled. How about getting to work on starting the season in September?

• It’s obvious the Pirates are going nowhere this season, but isn’t it pathetic to see and hear all the speculation about when they should trade their stars for prospects? Imagine hearing debates next October about when would be a good time for the Steelers to get rid of Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell. Or in December, having conversations about the Penguins dominated by talk of moving Crosby and/or Malkin.

Of course, imagine either the Steelers or the Penguins going 38 (going on 39) years without playing for a championship, much less winning one.

• But then, the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs had only won one more game than the Pirates coming into this weekend’s games. Feel free to hang your hat on that if you’d like.

• Widely respected hockey writer Elliote Friedman has said that, if the Penguins win the Stanley Cup, the Conn Smythe Trophy for playoff MVP should be awarded to Matt Murray and Marc-Andre Fleury.

Makes perfect sense.

John Steigerwald writes a Sunday column for the Observer-Reporter.