The IIHF is quietly trolling the NHL on social media about its Olympic participation

The IIHF released this pretty cool interview with Wayne Simmonds and Mark Scheifele using a 360-degree camera in the Canadian locker room. The actual meat of the interview isn’t really that interesting, aside from one little thing that you have to look closely to notice:

The IIHF is trolling the hell out of the NHL here.

First, the backstory: as you may have heard, the NHL is not sending its players to the Olympics in 2018, although there’s still a bit debate about whether or not that’s official yet. The IIHF — or International Ice Hockey Federation — is the international governing body for the sport, and they have a very real interest in NHL players going to the Games. Its president, Rene Fasel, has not been shy about expressing that fact.

So now we’re here at the 2017 World Championships, an event with NHL players up and down every roster. The IIHF runs the event, and the NHL has no real input or control over what happens. The IIHF has unlimited access to NHL players like Simmonds and Scheifele, and what narrative have they decided to push?

That NHL players want to go to the Olympics.

Here’s how they sold the above interview on Twitter:

Here’s how they sold it on YouTube:

Published on May 15, 2017
Olga asks a very important question at the end of this interview with Team Canada's Mark Scheifele and Wayne Simmonds.

Thank you for watching, stay tuned for even more action from the 2017 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship, or check out our videos page to catch even more highlights.

Sometimes it’s the little troll jobs that are the best.