NHL, NHLPA Release Official Return-To-Play Plan, Ratify CBA Extension

Photo by Andy Marlin/NHLI via Getty ImagesThis afternoon, the NHL and NHLPA formally ratified the new extension to the CBA, which will take us through 2026—and the end of Shea Weber’s current contract, a length of time I will have to stop thinking of as a geological era in hockey time—before we next need to worry about a lockout.

Much of the information from the new CBA has already been discussed. The biggest and most exciting news is that the NHL will be back in the Olympics for 2022—assuming that no delay to the Winter Olympics is needed. There’s been a lot of debate on whether the NHL, as a league, should lend its players to the Olympics, and whether the IOC deserves support, but it…