Fasel, Daly, Saskin meet with international media

Originally published on IIHF.com in 2006

By Lucas Aykroyd

After a sumptuous media brunch organized at the IIHF House of Hockey adjacent to the Palasport Olympico, IIHF President René Fasel, NHL Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer Bill Daly, and NHLPA Executive Director Ted Saskin sat down in front of a packed press conference to answer questions about the world of hockey.

Fasel set the stage with his opening statement: “In 1920, ice hockey was played for the first time at the Olympic Games in Antwerp. It took 68 years before the first appearance of NHL players in the Games. In 1988, you may remember we had a couple of NHL players in Calgary. In 1992 and 1994, unfortunately we had none of the NHLers playing in Albertville and Lillehammer. In 1998 in Nagano, we worked together for the first time with the NHL and the NHLPA. We found an agreement with the NHL and for the first time, the league shut down and took a break. It was the same thing in Salt Lake City, and we had a great tournament. I’m very pleased that once again the NHL together with the NHLPA has decided to shut down the league for 16 days to participate here in Torino.”

Fasel acknowledged the great efforts that NHL players have put forth to participate and represent their countries, despite intense game and travel schedules. Daly and Saskin echoed his positive sentiments.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity to be here at the Olympics, and we’re off to a great start,” said Daly, and Saskin added: “There’s no bigger stage than the Olympic Games, and it’s great to see all the teams here.”

The improvement in the NHL’s on-ice product for 2005-06, with new rules and increased emphasis on cracking down on obstruction, has also had a positive impact on international hockey, as all three men acknowledged.

Here are some highlights from the media session:

Daly, on the possibility of reducing the NHL schedule in future to limit the chance of injury at the Olympics: “It’s something we discussed in the Collective Bargaining Agreement, and we negotiated a longer period for the regular season on a going-forward basis. We’ll see what the right mix is. These Olympics were particularly challenging for us, because we determined so late in the process that we would take a break in our schedule and come here. We did the best we could with the schedule in an imperfect situation. We’re going to continue to work with the IIHF and NHLPA to make things as player-friendly as possible. Injuries happen in this game frequently, and all we can do is try to create the best environment possible. We’ll take this one tournament at a time.”

Daly, on whether NHL owners have the right to tell players they can’t go to the Olympics: “Right now, our agreement is no, the clubs don’t have the right to bar a player from deciding to participate in the Olympics. We’ve agreed with the IIHF and the Players Association, each individual player has the right to participate if he wants to.”

Fasel, on his overall expectations for the 2010 Olympics as IIHF President and head of the IOC Coordination Commission: “We’re going to have a great Olympics in Vancouver, I’m sure. Working together with the Vancouver people, and what they’re doing is amazing. We just had the junior World Championship there last month, with 400,000 people watching the games. I expect more or less the same situation for any sport that takes place in Vancouver. For hockey, it’ll be very different from how it is here. As everybody knows, Italy is not so much a winter sports country or an ice hockey country. But in Canada, it will be so much different. I promise you I will do my best to bring together the best hockey tournament ever there.”

Saskin, on WADA chief Dick Pound’s criticism of hockey’s anti-doping policies: “We have a brand-new program, and we think it’s going to work very effectively for our sport. I don’t feel the need to respond to people who frankly don’t understand much about our sport. For Dick Pound, I’ve said before that he’s probably got a large enough mandate worrying about the Olympics, and he should confine himself to subjects he knows something about.”

Fasel, on the foregoing topic: “We have more than 100 NHL players participating in our World Championship. We have about 160 here in Torino. We’ve made 3,000 tests in the last five or six years, many of them to NHL players, and we’ve had eight positive tests. Eight out of 3,000. There were no NHL players among them. Our testing program began about 1995.”

Fasel, on strengthening the level of competition in the Olympic women’s tournament: “We’ve got to do something about the qualification and participation of the host nation. As you know, Italy is ranked about 16th or 17th in our World Rankings. We will change our regulations so that they have to be in the top 10 to participate in the World Championships or Olympic Games. And if they’re not, they’ll have to qualify.”

Fasel, about the possibility of instituting U-22 women’s tournaments: “We are working on that, for sure. But if you want to build up a tournament like that, you have to have more players in countries [where women’s hockey has not yet gotten a foothold]. There was an idea coming from the Women’s Committee that we should organize such a tournament. It will come.”

Fasel, on the gap in women’s hockey between the North American powers and other nations: “If you go back to the men’s tournament, in 1920 Canada beat Switzerland 33-0 and Sweden 22-0. It took 64 years until the Sarajevo tournament for Sweden to beat the Canadian team, and Canada wasn’t there with its top NHL players. In the women’s game, at the beginning of the 1990’s, we had six or seven women’s national teams. Today, there are 30 teams participating in our different World Championships. You have 130,000 female players in the world, and 115,000 come from North America, 65,000 from Canada and 50,000 from the USA. You have 2,500 or 3,000 in Sweden and the same in Finland. You have less than 1,000 in the other countries participating here. But when the USA played Finland here, Finland was leading 3-1, even though the USA came back. You just need to be patient. The women are working very well and they have a lot of passion.”

Fasel, on the possibility of introducing new regulations so that the women’s teams can add replacement players in cases of injury: “Because of this very difficult schedule, we decided to [allow the men’s teams to have three replacement players], and why not do that for the ladies too? We’ll have a look at that.”

Saskin, on holding future World Cups: “This is something we’re going to have to discuss. You’ve got a very rigorous 82-game schedule and playoffs, and when you participate in the World Cup, you’re cutting into the summer period. With Olympic participation, our sense is that every two years is frankly too much to be organizing these kinds of events in terms of the demands on the players. We’ll have to see. The World Cup’s a great event and the Olympics are a great event. We have to figure out how they can co-exist and what the right balance is.”