Since the NHL began suspending its season four Olympics ago and flooding these Games with the best the sport has to offer, fantastic memories have been created.
More memories will be formed during Sunday's final event of these 2010 Winter Games, and quite frankly, you should cherish every moment of it.
Because in four years when the Olympics turn to Sochi -- a Russian resort city on the Black Sea -- NHLers might not be there to participate.
Much to the dismay of the International Olympic Committee and the International Ice Hockey Federation, the NHL has yet to commit to participating in the 2014 Olympics and it's hardly a shoo-in they will.
"It's clear when you look at these Games from 30,000 feet, it's all good," Commissioner Gary Bettman said at the start of these Olympics during a joint news conference with the head of the IIHF, Rene Fasel. "But you do have to take a step back at ground level and look at the impact on our season and what perhaps we can do about it."
Most passionate hockey fans who don't take time to study the issues are quick to attack Bettman. But if only it were that simple.
First of all, let's be clear: The NHL doesn't make money off the Olympics. This is not a partnership.
Here in 2010, 141 of the 276 players in the Olympics were from the NHL because the league was willing to hand over its assets and go on hiatus for two weeks.
Yet, the league has no control over these players, so for example, if NHL.com wants to interview a player, the league's own website must get behind a mixed-zone barrier and reach across a maze of reporter arms like the rest of us.
The original point of the Olympics was to grow the game globally and gain exposure for this wonderful sport. Yet the league has no control when Olympics rights-holder, and coincidentally NHL partner, NBC, decides to take the recent Canada-U.S. preliminary game -- the most watched sporting event in Canadian history -- and throw it on cable partner MSNBC.
With playoff races heating up, the league simply goes dark. It condenses its schedule and has teams go through an exhaustive pace in order to get in its 82-game season. It hurts the product when at least one of the two teams in virtually every game played the night before in a different city.
Focusing on Sochi specifically, it won't be easy to get the NHL players to and from. While TV coverage in Vancouver is conducive to North American viewers, games in Sochi will be played while most Americans and Canadians are sleeping or scrambling their eggs. And right now, there is a nonexistent relationship between the NHL and what should be their hockey partners in Russia.
The Kontinental Hockey League has shown no respect for NHL contracts, routinely trying to poach players, and in some cases actually doing so. The prime example is Nashville Predators forward Alex Radulov who, while still under contract to the Predators, signed a deal with a KHL team.
This is not to defend the NHL, which many believe is just haggling so it has a bargaining chip with players in the next collective bargaining agreement negotiations.
The players overwhelmingly want to participate, and the Olympic Games are so competitive, exciting and in some cases unpredictable, it would be tragic if the NHL was not involved.
But there are real issues to confront and it's not always as simple as blaming Gary Bettman and calling him shortsighted and stubborn.
Still, as the Team Canada boss Steve Yzerman says, "I think it's been great for the game, and it's been great for the NHL. My opinion is it would be a mistake for us to not to be involved, regardless of the inconvenience."
Sunday's U.S.-Canada showdown should be a magnificent display of hockey. Enjoy it while it lasts because you might not see it again -- at least with NHL players.
