Breaking: NHL players fire back at the league over Olympic participation.

The National Hockey League has gone out of it's way to make it rather clear they do not intend to participate in the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in South Korea, but their players may have something to say about it.

While some individual players have touched on the issue, on Thursday the head of the National Hockey League Player's Association, Donald Fehr, spoke to ESPN and made it clear the players were in this fight as well. First Fehr touched on the absurdity of the NHL asking the players to give up something in order to participate.

"I don't know what it can be from the players' perspective,'' Fehr told ESPN in a phone interview Thursday. "Obviously the players are not about to engage in collective bargaining in return for getting an opportunity to go to the Olympics for which they aren't being paid, where very valuable things would go elsewhere in return for that.''

That was a fairly reasonable statement from Fehr, and while it certainly is one that is in direct opposition of what the NHL wants, it doesn't come off as hostile. Fehr did fire some shots however, and one in particular did appear to be designed to hit the league hard as far as public relations are concerned.

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From ESPN's Pierre LeBrun:

As Fehr pointed out, the original issues which produced the Olympic stalemate -- covering the costs for player travel and contract insurance -- have been taken care of, according to IIHF president Rene Fasel.

"We are past all the issues that were present early on in these discussions as to whether or not the funding would be available to cover the kinds of unique expenses we have in hockey that the other sports don't have,'' Fehr said.

The implication here appears to be to show that the NHL may be negotiating in bad faith here, and furthermore may not be entirely upfront with the public about their intentions here. If our fan base is any indication, fans of the league have not been fooled and have seen this as a money grab by the league from the start.