League determined to go the distance
The NHL thinks it can play through a pandemic. Here’s how it plans to go about it
Frederik Andersen has an interesting way of looking at the NHL season ahead:
“It’s going to be both a sprint and a marathon,” the Maple Leafs goalie says.
He’s not wrong. It will count as a full season, but it will be only 56 games, 26 games shorter than usual. The spectre of COVID-19 will hang over teams’ heads, the possibility of postponed games or games played with fewer than normal players.
There will be constant testing. Repeated quarantining. A taxi squad of four to six players, including a mandated extra goalie, existing outside the salary cap, and practising with the regular team, designed to be at the ready to fill in at a moment’s notice.
“Obviously, we’re going to rely on more guys,” Andersen says. “There’ll be less games in a really tight schedule.
“It’s going to put a lot of pressure on guys to have to work hard, and perform, and play well when we do get chances to play.”
That’s a player’s perspective. But there’s a bigger question, like how is the NHL actually going to pull this off ?
The NFL is the template. The football league has reached the playoffs despite multiple COVID outbreaks that caused players to miss games and teams to postpone games. The league was under pressure to get its weekly slate of games in before the following week’s batch started. The crunch shouldn’t be the same for the NHL, which will be able to delay a game for weeks, if not months.
The NHL, like the NFL and Major League Baseball, won’t lay out what kind of COVID outbreak constitutes a reason to postpone a game, although the Dallas Stars’ opener has been delayed after six players and two staff members tested positive. Commissioner Gary Bettman would like to assure himself of maximum flexibility to deal with issues as they arise. And restrictions vary from region to region, so calls for a onesize-fits-all policy would probably be naive.
Border restrictions have already forced the league to realign, creating a North Division where the Canadian teams will play each other. That will help rivalries.
“We played Calgary in the bubble in an exhibition game with no fans, and you could still feel the intensity in the building,” Edmonton captain Connor McDavid says. “There is a tension between a lot of the Canadian teams. It’s going to be an interesting division.”
The biggest scheduling quirk involves the San Jose Sharks. They’re training in Arizona due to restrictions laid out by Santa Clara County public health officials. Their first eight games, and 14 of their first 18 games, are on the road.
And if their local health authority hasn’t lifted restrictions, they’ll play their home games in Arizona, alongside the Coyotes. Their hope is that in the latter half of the season, when the Sharks play the majority of their home games, they will be back in San Jose.
In the meantime, the Sharks, and players on any team uprooted, will get their own hotel rooms, their families may be invited, and they get a road per diem and rental car at the cost of the team.
Protocols: The league has issued a 54-page guideline requiring “strict adherence to preventative measures by all participants, including diligent hygiene and distancing practices” while acknowledging the protocol “cannot mitigate all risk.”
There is no immunity passport, so players who have had COVID-19 or those that get a vaccine must still adhere to all health protocols.
A confirmed positive test means the player enters 14 days of self-isolation. And while positive COVID-19 tests in training camp will remain anonymous, the league will announce which players contract the virus during the regular season.
The guidelines are exhaustive, from when and where players and coaches must wear masks to the bromine levels in hot tubs and the banning of the use of saunas and steam rooms.
Everyone from the president of the team to its social media personnel shall not be allowed contact with the players and coaching staff. Players are being told to “stay at home to the greatest extent possible and (not to) engage in unnecessary interactions with non-family members.” Even promotional activities need to be approved by local public health officials.
And each club is required to retain an infectious disease consultant — a medical doctor with specialty training and certification in infectious diseases — and a compliance officer who must monitor and enforce the protocol compliance. á The reserves: The taxi squads were created to have substitutions more readily available to clubs. The teams will still have their minor-league affiliates and players on those teams can also be recalled, but they would likely be facing multi-day quarantines.
Waivers will apply for players heading to the taxi squad. If they would need waivers to go to the minors, they would need waivers to join the taxi squad. And teams are going to have to keep players that don’t require waivers around to build in flexibility for call-ups.
“It allows us to keep a group of players closer to us, who are ready to come in and play and have a shorter transition,” Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe says. “Those players will practise with us and be in our meetings. So we see that as a benefit to our team.” á Trade obstacles: During the last lockout-shortened season in 2013, there were 17 trades made on the day of the trade deadline, nine the day before, and 18 in the week leading up to it, about in line with last year. The same might happen this year.
But, as things stand now, quarantining needs to be part of the equation. All players must abide by the orders of the local public health authorities. The quarantine will likely be a minimum of seven days, as far as the Leafs are concerned, with four days of testing. In some cases, it could stretch to 14 days, with the second week being a “work quarantine,” giving players access to practice facilities.
The acquiring team can designate any quarantined player as non-roster, filling his spot with another player so the team will not be short-handed. But is it worth getting a player who will have to sit a week or more down the stretch? á Road restrictions: It might seem to exotic to many of us — and unnecessary to some — but the travel can get monotonous for the players, especially as they are restricted to airplanes, buses and hotel lobbies.
“We’re not blind to understand we’re lucky to be able to come to work, to play the game we love,” McDavid says. “But we’re getting tested every day. Being smart. And we’re doing this for the fans. We’re going to be playing every other day for the next four or five months.
“But we understand some people may not like that we get to travel and play.”
All teams fly charters — that has been mandated since the 2001-02 season — and typically use private airfields or private entrances at bigger airports. So they won’t mix with the population at large. When they land, it will be a bus ride to the hotel. That’s their existence — hotel, rink — with little variation.
It’s not as strict a bubble as what the NHL experienced in its Stanley Cup playoffs in Toronto and Edmonton over the summer. But it’s close.
“It’s going to be different,” Leafs defenceman Jake Muzzin says. “From what I’ve heard, we’re going to be in our room, maybe a lounge, but with social distancing.”
Back to the bubble? Speaking of bubbles, if all goes off the rails with COVID-19 and jurisdictions shut down arenas, the league still has an active backup plan to place teams within bubbles. It’s not saying a lot about it. The players don’t really want to do it, and it will be expensive for the owners, but the plan exists.
Players will be encouraged, but not mandated, to take the vaccine by the league — that’s a collective bargaining issue. Nor will the league put itself at the front of the vaccine queue, though it’s not opposed to getting its own supply, likely after front-line workers and the most susceptible populations have been vaccinated.
Also, watch for players to emerge as role models in the fight against COVID-19, promoting hygiene, distancing and maybe even vaccinations.
Revenue sources: Only a few teams will be allowed to sell tickets for games when the season begins, and those numbers will be limited. So hockey’s major revenue stream is more like a trickle.
But the league created new ones: It has let teams sell sponsorship stickers for players’ helmets, added advertising on the glass, and the divisions now come with corporate sponsors, turning the North into the Scotia NHL North Division, for example.
Those initiatives supposedly are being tested for this year only but, if successful, it’s hard to see the league not letting the new revenue sources carry on when fans pack arenas again.
“I was probably one of the guys that was against that kind of stuff for a long time,” Leafs forward Jason Spezza says. “Due to the circumstances, though, I welcome it. They’re just trying to do their best to make everything whole and to keep those companies happy that support us, for them to get extra exposure. They’ve done it in a classy way.”
The finish line: The key dates of the season — Jan. 13: opening night; April 12: trade deadline; May 8: last day of the regular season; May 11: start of the playoffs; and July 9: the latest the Stanley Cup can be awarded — seem like markers as the NHL traverses that part-marathon, part-sprint Andersen was talking about. Throw in some COVID hurdles and it’s a whole new hockey triathlon.
“It’s just trying to keep yourself to home and the rink at home. And on the road, you try to keep yourself in the rink and just the hotel,” Spezza says. “You’re going to be sitting with the same people all the time in the hotels. You try to eat your meals around the same time, with the same people. You don’t really leave the hotel. You just get yourself ready and keep your distance when you can around the dressing room.”
In theory, it can work. The players are grateful for the chance not just to play but to prove the precautions will work.
“We’ve been very diligent,” Spezza says. “We have lots of people around here reminding us to keep our masks on. It becomes second nature so, like anything, we’ll adapt.
“It’s just playing hockey. We’ll do it. We’re fortunate that we’re allowed to play right now and we’re going to follow the rules and make sure that we do a good job to give ourselves a chance to ice a full lineup every night.”