The NHL remains reluctant to reverse course and compete at the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing despite new assurances from Olympic officials to lift various major stumbling blocks, which also have the backing of the league's players.
NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly significantly tamped down hopes of the world's best players returning to the Olympics for the first time since 2014 by referring to recent talks as being "very preliminary" and leaving open many unanswered questions.
"We aren't there yet. In fact, we aren't even close to being there," Daly wrote in an email to The Associated Press on Monday. "At this point in time, we continue to believe that the negatives outweigh the positives."
