Chara calls on NHL to make Olympic decision

Zdeno Chara is tired of the lack of progress in the Olympic participation saga.

"Any time there's some sort of interference, it looks bad on the sport and it looks bad on the people making the decisions," the Boston Bruins captain said Monday, according to ESPN's Pierre LeBrun.

"We are at a point where people need to really sit down behind one table and find a solution, instead of always kind of being defensive I would say, or finding ways not to find solutions."

A league source told LeBrun on Monday that no Olympic meetings are "currently on the docket," but Chara wants to see future in-person discussions that lead to a resolution.

"That's what I'm hoping for and believe that it will eventually happen," he said. "Things will find a way and fall into place for the Olympics, for the sport and for the history of all the nations being in the same place; come together and we will see the best hockey players for their countries at the Olympics.''

Chara has played in three Olympic Games, and the hulking Slovak defenseman hopes to take part in a fourth.

"I think every player wants to be part of the Olympics. It's one of the biggest stages that any athlete can participate in and compete in. It makes it so special when you have your best athletes all over the world competing against each other."

Many players have vocalized their desire to go to South Korea in 2018, and some have said they'll go individually whether or not the NHL agrees to participate.

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Last fall, the International Olympic Committee set a deadline of Jan. 15 for a decision, but that passed without one and the issue remains unresolved.

At the All-Star festivities in L.A. in January, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and deputy commissioner Bill Daly implied that Olympic participation in 2018 was unlikely.