Players on American Hockey League contracts will be eligible to play in the 2018 Winter Olympics.
President and CEO David Andrews confirmed through a league spokesman Wednesday that teams were informed they could loan players on AHL contracts to national teams for the purposes of participating in the PyeongChang Olympics.
The AHL sent a memo to its 30 clubs saying players could only be loaned for Olympic participation from Feb. 5-26.
The Olympic men’s hockey tournament runs from Feb. 9-25. Like the NHL, which is not having its players participate for the first time since 1994, the AHL does not have an Olympic break in its schedule.
The AHL’s decision does not affect players assigned to that league on NHL one- or two-way contracts. No final decision has been made about those players.
NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly denied a CBC report that the league had told its 31 teams that AHL players could be loaned to play in the Olympics. It was an AHL memo sent at the direction of that league’s board of governors.
When the NHL announced in April that it wouldn’t be sending players to South Korea after participating in five consecutive Olympics, Andrews said the AHL was prepared for Canada, the United States and other national federations to request players.
“I would guess we’re going to lose a fair number of players,” Andrews said in April. “Not just to Canada and the U.S., but we’re going to lose some players to other teams, as well. But we’re used to that. Every team in our league has usually got two or three guys who are on recalls to the NHL, so it’s not going to really change our competitive integrity or anything else.”
The U.S. and Canada are expected to rely heavily on players in European professional leagues and college and major junior hockey to fill out Olympic rosters without NHL players.
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