The NHL will send its players to the Winter Olympics for a sixth time.
The league had included a Feb. 7-22 break in its 2021-22 schedule for the Beijing Olympics while negotiations continued. A deal was reached on Friday.
The agreement between the National Hockey League, NHL Players' Association and the International Ice Hockey Federation allows for the possibility of a later decision to withdraw in the event that evolving COVID-19 conditions render participation by players to be impractical or unsafe.
NHL players participated in the Olympics in 1998 (Nagano), 2002 (Salt Lake City), Torino (2006), Vancouver (2010) and Sochi (2014).