A Q&A with NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly on the 4 Nations Face-Off and the future of international competition
League is committed to player participation in World Cup of Hockey, Olympics
It has been nine years since an international hockey tournament truly featured a best-on-best format. That’s about to change.
Speaking before the start of the 4 Nations Face-Off in Montréal on Wednesday, the National Hockey League and the NHL Players’ Association formally and jointly announced that the World Cup of Hockey will return in 2028. The announcement follows the league’s previous commitment to allowing players to participate in the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics, and the 2030 French Alps Olympics.
“We will be asking for bids on hosting games,” NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said of the World Cup of Hockey. “We will have a package that will be done in the next few weeks and we couldn’t be more excited about making a reality, Olympics-World Cups-Olympics-World Cups on a regular schedule of the best hockey players in the world representing their countries. We know the full-blown World Cup, of which this (the 4 Nations Face-Off) is simply a sampler, is going to be sensational.”
The 4 Nations Face-Off, which is currently being played in Montréal and Boston, is the first international best-on-best tournament with a large group of NHL stars since the World Cup of Hockey in 2016 in Toronto. NHL players have not competed in the Olympics since the 2014 Games in Sochi, Russia.
NHL players have competed in the World Championship in subsequent years, but the participation numbers are small, both because the tournament falls during the Stanley Cup Playoffs (generally during the second round) which limits which players can attend, and because many players are often exhausted or rehabbing injuries at the end of the NHL regular season, which wraps up in mid-April for non-playoff teams.
NHL players and the PA have long expressed a desire to return to the Olympics and international competitions, but the league cited COVID-19 as the reasons it did not send players to the Beijing Olympics in 2022, and it cited factors such as travel costs, insurance for the players, and marketing rights in its decision not to send players to Pyeongchang, South Korea in 2018.
The last World Cup of Hockey was supposed to take place in 2024, but the NHL also scuttled plans for that event.
“By the time we conceived of it, we were already in late 2021, early 2022," NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said. "We ran into some immediate difficulties with European leagues and European clubs not wanting to release players for a World Cup of Hockey that was going to take place in the middle of the season.
"Then we had the Russian aggression in Ukraine right after the [2022] Olympics. So we transitioned to a tournament that we could control entirely, where we could ice four complete, deep, talented teams of NHL players to perform in this tournament, and we don't need help or permission from any other entity to let these players play."
The NHL is still working toward an agreement with the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF). Daly said NHL players have expressed their desire to both participate in the World Cup of Hockey, and to have some games played in Europe, but the IIHF and its media partners have been reluctant to do so, both because it interrupts European leagues’ seasons and because the existence of the World Cup in February may diminish the impact of the World Championship three months later; especially when the rosters are not as talented.
The former argument is ironic since the IIHF asks the NHL to pause its season for the Olympics, and it asks for NHL player participation in the World Championship right after their NHL regular season or playoffs conclude, with no compensation for the league and risk of injury for highly-paid players on the international stage.
There is also precedent for pausing European leagues. European soccer leagues, including the Premier League, regularly schedule international breaks so that their players can take part in FIFA World Cup qualifying, the UEFA European Championships, the Africa Cup of Nations, Copa América, the CONCACAF Gold Cup, and other events.
If the NHL wanted to, it could enforce its players’ contracts and bar them from international competitions. It could also just host the World Cup on North American soil, but it wants to accede to players’ wishes so the league is hopeful that there will be a give-and-take with the IIHF. It has also made it clear to the IIHF that it has no more appetite for tournaments hosted in August or September, which was the case with the 1996 World Cup of Hockey.
I spoke to Daly at length about the league’s decision to return to international competition, and what it will look like.
You already explained why the 4 Nations Face-Off was created. Who were the principles involved in creating it?
Daly: “Our international events group, which is [Executive Vice President, Media and International Strategy] David Proper, [Vice President of International Strategy] Lynn White and myself. And then on the Players Association side, it was [Senior Director, International Strategy & Growth] Rob Zepp, and [Assistant to Executive Director [Marty Walsh] for Special Projects and Development Initiatives] Ron Hainsey, who obviously has taken a much more increased role within the PA’s leadership.
“And of course, Marty and Gary were aware and supportive the whole way through.”
Did Marty Walsh’s leadership at the NHLPA make this a smoother process?
Daly: "Yes, we've worked very, very well together. I think it was kind of a renewed effort. We had some growing pains with kind of forging that partnership on the international level a couple years ago, but I think it has since really come together to the point where I think we're in lockstep virtually on everything that we're doing internationally. It's developed into a really good partnership for sure.”
Russia's situation is what it is, but why were traditional hockey-playing nations such as the Czech Republic excluded?
Daly: "We didn't have enough Czech players to ice a team exclusively of NHL players, and each one of the players who are playing overseas have different contractual provisions; different abilities to excuse themselves to participate for a kind of national team. So that gets complicated.
"I do think that the world will get less complicated as we move forward from a player perspective. Now that we're committed to international competitions, best-on-best on an every-other-year basis with the Olympics and World Cups of Hockey, players who are good enough to make their national team and participate for their national team are going to ensure their ability to do that, even if it happens to be in mid-season."
Editor’s note: There are currently just four Czech defenseman in the NHL, per QuantHockey, with several more in the AHL.
Is it hypocritical on international leagues' part to say, 'We don't support these events in the middle of our seasons’ when that's exactly what they ask the NHL to do for the Olympics?
Daly: "We're in the middle of those conversations. We haven't reached any kind of permanent, final resolution on the issues, but we're certainly in a dialogue about it and that includes the IIHF on behalf of European entities, whether it be the existing professional leagues or whether it be the member national associations.
“The IIHF is, at this point at least, kind of repping them as a group. That may change as we go forward. We might have to deal with separate entities individually. We'll be prepared to do that if that's what we need to do.
“Look, I think the world of hockey has changed and evolved over time such that it's much more complicated to do an international tournament mid-season than it may have been 40 years ago. The leagues have grown — and that's a good thing for hockey — to a point where they have their own businesses and have an interest in seeing the players that their clubs sign to play hockey for them are actually available to play hockey for them.”
Were there challenges pulling the 4 Nations Face-Off together?
Daly: "The players have been very vocal — and we get it — that as we move this out and move forward in the World Cup of Hockey, they very much want to be able to play some of the games of the tournament in Europe. That is one of the challenges we have because, again, the European leagues don't necessarily want us in Europe in mid-season, especially before the World Championship that they have in May.
"As for this tournament, particularly given its structure of four teams, we didn't think it required us having to fly teams or players, who are all NHL players, overseas to play games so it was much simpler to plan. We settled on two iconic NHL cities so we could have a portion of the games played in Canada, and then in Boston, which I'm not sure has ever really hosted an international competition.”
Does the timing of the World Cup of Hockey present challenges for European media rights holders when it falls so close to the World Championship?
Daly: "It's hard to say at this point. All the media rights related to the World Championships are sold as a package by the IIHF to Infront, which is a sports media company that's ultimately Chinese owned currently, but it is originally a European company. They have expressed concerns through the IIHF that a tournament that features games in Europe in February may dilute the product that they are presenting in May, and the value of that product.
“We don't necessarily think that's the result. We certainly will work with everybody to try to be good partners, for lack of a better term, in terms of minimizing any impact or any negative impact that our tournament might have on their tournament. But at the end of the day, we have to look out for our players and ourselves first and foremost. So that's where we are."
Will we ever see the 4 Nations Face-Off again?
Daly: “Our goal and intention is not to have to duplicate this again. We are fully committed to the World Cup of Hockey in 2028.”
Follow Craig Morgan on Twitter or on Bluesky
I’ll bet the owners don’t like these tournaments.
If I were Tkatchuk’s boss, I’d make the league reimburse me for every minute he misses ha
There was some hittin goin on.