Korea an Olympic yawn?

Photo: CTV

Jonathon Toews celebrates the game winning goal in the 2014 men's Olympic hockey final.

Many Canadian hockey fans are less than excited about the upcoming Winter Olympics, as there'll be no NHL players participating for the first time since 1998.

A recent poll by the Angus Reid Institute found that a full 36 per cent of Canadians surveyed said they weren't going to watch Olympic hockey at all.

Of those who said they would be watching the games, 43 per cent said they won't care as much about the games because of the lack of the NHL players.

Twenty years after the International Olympic Committee allowed professional athletes to compete at the Games, the NHL has not allowed its players to participate in 2018.

The decision has left 17 per cent of Canadians who would have otherwise followed the hockey games, planning to not watch this year.

Most European leagues, as well as Russia's KHL, have taken a break for the Games, making the competition stiff this year for Team Canada.

The survey polled 966 Canadians from Feb. 2 – 5 and carries a margin of error of +/- 2.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.