
Andrew Mazza of Manalapan, New Jersey is an experienced chef who is classically trained in Korean food and has worked at Seoul Fusion and Eat Clean Bro. A former high school hockey player, Andrew Mazza continues to play and watch the sport on a recreational basis.
While Hockey has been played at the Winter Olympics since 1924, the National Hockey League (NHL) and its players didn’t participate until 1998. The league continued to send players to the Olympics until the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, for which it cited logistical, cost, and travel concerns as reasons for its absence. The league is considering involvement in the 2022 Olympics in China and was recently given a deadline of August 2020 by International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) President Rene Fasel. This gives the IIHF a 17-month window to prepare for the Games. The NHL announced it wasn’t going to South Korea only 10 months prior to the 2018 Games.
According to Fasel, the North American teams in particular had difficulty preparing competitive teams for the 2018 Games without the inclusion of NHL players. While NHL players are in favor of playing in the 2022 Games, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman has said the idea of a two-week break in the league’s schedule is “disruptive.”
Canada won three of the five gold medals in the Olympics in which NHL players participated. Czech Republic and Sweden won in 1998 and 2006, respectively, and the Olympic Athletes from Russia defeated Germany in the 2018 Gold Medal Game.
