Canucks have premier’s support for hub
Horgan touts rich hosting history that includes Olympics and two World Junior Hockey Championships
Dollars and sense.
The NHL has wrestled with those divisive concepts in planning to relaunch its “paused” season amid constraints of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
A growing buzz is that health actually might trump mega millions of lost wealth.
The remainder of the regular season could be scrapped in favour of a 24-team, play-in tournament commencing in July to crown a Stanley Cup champion. The NHL was poised to lose US$1 billion if the rest of the season was cancelled and can recoup onethird of the financial gutpunch by staging the playoffs.
Reducing the schedule could help limit the possible spread of COVID-19.
It wouldn’t force teams with no chance of advancing to the post-season to be sequestered for months in a hotel. And reducing the number of players and hotel time by at least a month would be a boon. The trickle-down effect could benefit Vancouver in its tug of war with Edmonton to be one of four host hubs for resumption of play.
The Canucks’ bid is strongly supported by B.C. Premier John Horgan. In a letter to NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, he championed Vancouver as “the ideal location” because of a rich hockey hosting history that includes the 2010 Winter Olympics and two World Junior Hockey Championship events.
He added the province is “among the few jurisdictions in North America where a plan adheres to public health orders and offers a comfortable, safe and secure environment.”
With the B.C. Restart Plan to include opening hotels in June, it only serves to strengthen the Vancouver bid.
The city boasts at least a dozen five-star hotels in the downtown core that feature from 377 to 733 rooms and are within walking distance of the Canucks’ home arena.
A strong hosting infrastructure includes television-ready
Rogers Arena, the Pacific Coliseum, UBC, the Abbotsford Centre and Langley Events Centre would also meet the criteria for games and practices, multiple locker-rooms, gyms, medical treatment facility and transportation.
“The support from the provincial government and the city has been phenomenal and they just jumped right in,” Canucks chief operating officer Trent Carroll said Thursday. “We’re in dialogue with them with everything that’s going on in the industry. The clarity of the support is fantastic.”
There’s also a revenue component with arena rental and catering possibilities for hundreds of players for months.
“For me, it’s not about the revenue,” added Carrol added. “This is for the economy and the community and it’s even bigger than money. Right now, everybody needs something and we’re all searching for something that can make us feel better.”
If the remainder of the regular season is scrapped, the Canucks would have six home games cancelled and trigger a mechanism where season ticket holders and single-game purchasers are compensated.
Season ticket holders can take the credit left over, based on games not played, and transfer it over to next year while single-ticket purchasers would be refunded.
“We’re getting close to going to our season-ticket members and single-game purchasers and providing them with real clear direction and the next steps for them,” Carroll said.
“By early next week, we hope to go out to everybody and be really clear with folks.”
What’s not clear is when next season will start and how to market 2020-21.
A COVID-19 vaccine may not be in place for 12 to 18 months and there’s no guarantee of when broad testing with quick results and development of herd immunity — sufficient numbers becoming immune to stop the virus from spreading — will happen.
On Thursday, B.C. health officials reported 33 new positive test cases in the previous 24 hours to bring the provincial total to 2,288 COVID-19 cases, including 865 in the Vancouver Coast Health Authority. There have been two more deaths to increase the count to 126 while 76 patients are in hospital, including 26 in intensive care. A total of 1,512 have recovered from the virus.
The province remains in Phase 1 of COVID-19 distancing protocols and Phase 2 will be implemented after the long weekend on May 19.
For the Canucks, the next planned step is players returning to train at the arena by mid-May, but that date could be extended.
Factor in current protocols and an additional 14-day self-isolation period for players returning from outside Canada, a two-week training camp wouldn’t start here until mid-June and then followed by exhibition games.
“Based on what’s going on in the world, we have to take direction from our provincial government with our health,” Carroll cautioned. “It’s a priority for us. We’re planning out a number of different scenarios because I don’t think anybody knows exactly the timing or anything else. We’ll wait for clear direction and it’s that simple.
“There are so many moving parts to what could happen. How can we execute that? What would it mean to our organization and what kind of support would we require for that with financial and operational implications?
“You can’t play out one or two scenarios. You have to have a lot because there’s no book on this one. It’s super-challenging.”