This week, the National Hockey League announced it will not be taking a month off next season so its players can compete for their national teams in the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea.

The first reaction from nearly everyone is … “what an awful decision”.

The NHL’s players joined the Winter Games in 1998, and the past five tournaments presented a chance for the league to be seen by those who might not normally be susceptible to its brutal/elegant charms.

But the NHL is not going along with this one for a variety of reasons, reasons that suggest this is not only about the widely unpopular commissioner Gary Bettman and the team owners.

Those behind the “hell no, we won’t go” decision seem to believe that league owners are not getting enough value for money, just as their season is entering the home stretch, to have their stars join the world’s top national hockey teams at the Winter Games.

This time around, the owners and Bettman said they were looking, per ESPN, for conciliatory offers from the International Olympic Committee and/or the NHL Players’ Association” to ease the pain of shutting down in February every four years. The league also wanted the players union to agree to extend the current “player agreement” another two season — accepting in advance that it would not “opt out” of the current contract.

Pretty much everyone not involved with the league or its individual owners believes the “no Olympics” NHL movement to be an idea both horrible and ridiculous.

One of ESPN’s lead hockey writers is much closer to the situation than are we and suggests the International Olympic Committee as well as the players union must accept responsibility, as well.

In short:

–The IOC said it would not pay for expenses (like insurance for players) it had carried since the NHL debut, back in ’98, before it retreated on that demand. And when the NHL was still considering pulling out of the 2018 Olympics, the IOC threatened that not playing in 2018 could mean not playing in 2022 … which NHL owners did not take well.

–The players, many/most of them, like playing in the Olympics, and the league thought the players should make a gesture showing some appreciation of the league’s agitation with the Winter Games — mainly by vowing to extend the collective bargaining agreement through 2022 and not take the opt out two years earlier.

Some writers who seem sympathetic to the NHL’s plight overstate the league’s importance to the Winter Games. It is not the “biggest event in the Games” — figure skating will always own that title, followed by alpine skiing.

Global hockey already has a world championships, organized by national teams, so it is not as if the Winter Olympics own that designation.

Also, some of the Winter Games’ best hockey moments came during the quasi-amateur period that existed through 1994 — including the 1980 Miracle on Ice.

However, the NHL in the Games appeals to the largely male hockey demographic, and also to those who appreciate team sports — which are otherwise rare in the Winter Games.

Some seem to believe the NHL is finished negotiating. Others seem to hope this latest announcement, and the declaration that the issue is “closed” is in itself a negotiating tactic.

Let’s hope all parties can step back and reconsider this. I can assure you, having covered three Winter Games with amateur pucksters as well as three with the elite pros … that the Olympics are better with the NHL, and the NHL is better with the Olympics.