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DIGITAL EDITION BONUS CONTENT As Collective Bargaining Sessions Drag On, The Future Of NHL Players Competing In The Olympics Hangs In The Balance SEE YOU IN SOCHI? By HARRY THOMPSON I 22 "But I will tell you that the set up in Sochi is amazing. I think it will be the best Winter Olympics ever." Now if they can just figure out who will be donning the national colors of the respective participants when they drop the puck in early February 2014. With the NHL and its "I had to a six-hour cab ride to Sochi because our flight was diverted because there was fog on the Black Sea," Burke told a packed house at the 2012 National Hockey Coaches Symposium. f there's one thing Brian Burke hates listening to it's bad travel stories. If you don't want horrible travel experiences, he reasons, then just don't travel. So it may be a bit out of character to listen to the president and general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs talk about a recent site visit to Sochi, Russia to check out how things are going in preparation for the 2014 Olympic Winter Games. room, but I can tell you that we haven't gotten to that yet," said Burke, who is part of the negotiating team. And while he would certainly like to have NHL players participate in the preeminent hockey tournament held on the sport's grandest stage, the general manger of the 2010 U.S. Men's Team that won the silver medal in Vancouver said there is more that goes into the decision than just choosing sides and dropping the puck. "No other sport closes its doors for three weeks in the middle of the season," Burke said. "Some markets have not recovered from the last Olympic experience. Imagine Association locked in another labor dispute, the third in 18 years, the status of Olympic participation is just one of the minor bargaining chips on the table. "I can't tell you what's going on in the Players YOU DON'T DO IT FOR THE TITLE" "IF YOU DO SOMETHING FOR YOUR COUNTRY OCTOBER.2012 USAHOCKEYMAGAZINE.COM you're in a non-traditional market like Florida or Nashville, the team is cruising along and you close your doors for three weeks. "Everyone says, 'but yeah, it was great in Vancouver.' We got Canada and the U.S. in the finals. We had Canada against U.S. in the gold medal game in Salt Lake City. A great match up, great ratings, everything was fine." held outside North America – Nagano, Japan in 1998 and Torino, Italy in 2006 – didn't yield the ratings or the marketing clout that the NHL was looking for due in large part to the time change and the fact that neither the United States or Canada finished on the medals podium. Still, Burke sees a huge benefit from having other countries standing But the two Olympics PHOTOS BY Xxxxxxxxxxx