NHL Commissioner, Gary Bettman is optimistic. Here's a quote from his appearance of Fox Business this morning; "My guess at this point is we're probably going to be playing into the summer, which is something that we can certainly do."
How would this be remotely possible? Based off some of the rumors we have been hearing it sounds like they wouldn't play in front of fans. How could they? There's no way we are going to be able to gather in large groups of 20,000 people by July.
The other rumor going around is that the NHL is looking for a central site to host the entirety of the playoffs. The NBA has been having a similar discussion about continuing their playoffs in Las Vegas. That's slightly more realistic I suppose. Basketball is definitely easier on the body than a playoff hockey game, allowing teams to play games multiple days in a row. While hockey does play back to back nights during the regular season, there is no way they could do that during the playoffs based on how hard they play each night.
What's truly hilarious to me is that one of the central sites the NHL has talked about is Manchester, New Hampshire. The NBA wants Vegas and the NHL wants "ManchVegas." Manchester has an arena and probably the hotel space, but it would just be absurd to award the Stanley Cup in an empty arena in southern New Hampshire.
Another issue about hosting the playoffs in July or August is that the NHL would want to start the 2020-2021 season in November. With the amount of injuries that teams have coming out of the post season, giving players only a few weeks to recover before starting the next season is completely unrealistic and I also think the Player's Association would never go for it. There are already too many regular season games with too much travel. The players need rest. The game is tough on the body and if the NHL really cares about player safety like they claim, they wouldn't want to put their players through such a harsh schedule.
Above all else though I feel like this would just be a bad product. The crowd plays a huge role in the excitement of a playoff game. Look at Nashville's run to the cup in 2017. The crowd was electric every night. As someone who has attended several regular season and playoffs games, I can tell you there is a massive difference in atmosphere. In Boston every fan has a yellow towel and giant flags are held in each corner of the arena with a player's number on it. A fan gets to wave the flag as another giant Bruins flag floats through the crowd. Music is pumping and the lights are going crazy. It's next level. All of that will be lost with this new format.
I never thought I would be "we need to protect the integrity of the game" type of person, but here I am. I don't want to see a watered down product, and I say that with my team finishing a canceled season as the likely President Trophy winners. Don't force this NHL. Think about player safety and putting out a good product, not about losing money.
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