NHL EMBRACING THE WEIRD IN ITS RETURN-TO-PLAY PLAN
Hockey is back, almost, and the Montreal Canadiens and Chicago Blackhawks could meet in the Stanley Cup Final in a couple of months — and honestly, it has not suddenly turned into 2015.
If you have not paid much attention to the efforts to bring the National Hockey League back to action — which is understandable given, you know, the state of the world over the past few months — you might be surprised to see what has resulted. Actually, check that: You will almost certainly be surprised. Because in its absence, the NHL went and got weird. Here, then, is a guide to What Happened to Hockey While You Were Busy With a Pandemic. Fire away with your questions.
Q
Hockey is back?
A Almost! After teasing for weeks that the big details had been agreed upon for a return-to-play plan, the NHL and its players’ association then spent quite some time working out the finer details in a process that must have caused quite a few lousy sleeps among executives at Sportsnet. But the whole package was finally agreed upon late Monday, and if all the approvals come in a hurry this week, training camps will begin next week. Games — actual games with sticks and pucks and the thrill of an offside challenge — would begin Aug. 1.
Q What took so long?
A Somewhat shockingly, this wasn’t a case where the two sides were hung up on haggling over pennies (See: baseball). Rather, the league and the union took the chance, while they were essentially reworking the collective bargaining agreement, to do just that, extending it by four years and bringing Olympic participation back.
Q Wait, the NHL is back in the Olympics?
A I thought Gary Bettman insisted that the league no longer saw the benefit in participating in that tournament?
Yes, he did. Would it shock you if I said that this turned out to be a negotiating ploy and that the NHL commissioner probably never believed that argument for a minute?
Q It would not. So, um, how to put this delicately: What about the pandemic?
A Right, there is that. The NHL appears to have had great foresight on this matter, even though it is more likely the case that it was just slow to make some returnto-play decisions. Either way, as a result the league was able to watch as confirmed COVID-19 infections rose in places like Arizona and Florida and then make the informed decision to not hold games there. Instead it will set up shop in Edmonton and Toronto where, for now at least, community spread of the coronavirus has been largely controlled. Each city will effectively host a conference playoffs, and then the final two from Toronto will move to Edmonton for the conference finals and the Stanley Cup Final.
Q The whole thing will take place in Canada?
A There is zero chance that this is what the NHL had in mind, and it no doubt makes Bettman sad. Call it the Revenge of the Quebec Nordiques. But as much as the NHL hopes to create bubbles around its teams in each of the hub cities, there is no escaping the fact that there is no way to completely seal off those bubbles. The risk of introducing the virus would naturally be greater in, say, Las Vegas, than it would be in Edmonton. Nevada had more than 2,000 confirmed infections over the past three days; Alberta had 130, and with a larger overall population.
Q Doesn’t that mean there’s a risk that these teams will bring the virus with them?
A There sure is. The protocols agreed to by Canadian governments will require the players and staff to have multiple negative COVID tests before they move to the hub cities, where they would then spend another week in the bubbles before the playoffs begin. But a similar scenario is playing out in Major League Soccer, where teams are travelling to Orlando before beginning tournament play there. At least one and possibly two teams appear to have brought multiple cases with them from home, due to the fact that it can take several days before an infected person shows a positive result. This is the nightmare scenario that the NHL, and the Canadian governments that have allowed them to set up their tournament here, would desperately like to avoid. With 12 teams in each hub, and with 50-plus people per team, that’s a lot of potential virus carriers.
Q Hold on. 24 playoff teams?
A Indeed. In order to avoid the awkwardness of throwing teams straight into the Stanley Cup playoffs after a four-month hiatus, the league added eight teams to the mix and will have an extra Qualification Round. The top eight teams from the interrupted season get to avoid that and play a mini tournament to determine seeding for the Actual Playoffs, while the remaining 16 teams play in bestof-five series for the right to join them. Thus, dead-and-buried teams like Chicago and Montreal are back in it. Given playoff hockey’s tendency to produce upsets, it’s entirely possible that one of the teams that was jolted back to life by the expanded playoff format ends up making a deep run. Also notable for Canadian fans is that six of the seven teams here made the tournament and have a crack at breaking the country’s long playoff drought. The Ottawa Senators are out, although they would have made it if there were 30 playoff teams.
A 31.Q How many teams in NHL?