NHL surprises and entertains, while MLB battles COVID-19

Sometimes you wake up wondering where you are and ask yourself what the hell happened to our old world.

Our alternative pandemic reality has twisted our routines inside out to the point where we almost forget what normal used to look and feel like. It’s now a 14-second commute from the bed to the office and a dinner out is a barbecue in the backyard.

Then came Monday and the all too familiar mourning-after feeling for the Toronto Maple Leafs faithful.

Time to double check the calendar. Have we entered into some kind of wonky Back To

The Future or Hot Tub Time Machine territory?

It’s mid-august, not late April. It’s also 2020, 161/2 years since Joe Nieuwendyk chased Patrick Lalime and Jacques Martin away from the Ottawa Senators, leading the Maple Leafs to their last playoff series victory.

How long ago was that? It was three years before the iphone was introduced. Jason Spezza, the 37-year-old centre who tried desperately to will the Maple Leafs’ kids past the Columbus Blue Jackets, was then in his first full season with the Senators.

As for all of the above, the return of the NHL has been healthy and good for what ails us.

Of course, in the short term, fans of the Maple Leafs and Edmonton Oilers are beside themselves in despair (another ageless reminder about how goaltending and teamwork trumps top-end skill in hockey), once again wondering if their Stanley Cup ships will ever come in.

Alternatively, there’s renewed hope for Montreal Canadiens fans. Now, according to the Betonline odds that just arrived in the inbox, the Canadiens have a 15/1 chance of advancing to the Stanley Cup final. They also have someone named Carey Price in goal.

After the roller-coaster of emotions the return to hockey has already delivered, keep this in mind: The playoffs haven’t officially even started yet.

We’re only now down to the traditional 16 teams and four rounds of best-of-seven series.

Time to take a deep breath of the August air before returning to your TV sets for more roundthe-clock hockey. In one sense, it’s completely goofy.

Typically, it’s also the time of year when players begin trickling back to their NHL cities, gradually working their way into game shape with one or two casual skates per week. Training camps for rookies normally start after Labour Day, main camps a week later.

That’s the tried and true back-to-school process. Now, of course, there’s nothing normal about back-to-school procedures. Ask any parent.

As for the new world of the NHL, we’ll get four more games Tuesday, followed by four more on Wednesday. And so on and so on. And it’s hot outside. How many of us might just sneak away from the office a little early, changing out of our work shorts and T-shirts into our hockey-watching shorts and T-shirts to take in the start of the marathons?

The NHL production certainly hasn’t been a perfect substitute for the way things used to be.

The nuances of home-ice advantage are meaningless, especially now that the staycation is over for both Toronto and Edmonton.

We’re not sure how the fake fan applause plays out in the arena, but it adds nothing to the Tv-watching experience.

There’s an unnatural stiffness to the interviewing process, with players and/or coaches waiting for queries from reporters they can’t see. After the post-series disappointment, Maple Leafs centre Auston Matthews simply decided he wasn’t going to answer a question he didn’t like, a blatant disrespect for the process involved.

All things considered, though, the NHL has found a way to make it work as seamlessly as possible.

For all the original cynics (yours truly included), the two hub-city plan has worked remarkably well.

Over in Major League Baseball circles, meanwhile, it has been a travelling coronavirus circus.

As of Monday, the St. Louis Cardinals had played five games, while the San Francisco Giants and Atlanta Braves had played 17 games. The Toronto Blue Jays are preparing to play their first home game — in Buffalo — on Tuesday.

Add it all up and today’s NHL wins over today’s MLB in a landslide victory.

Sometimes you just need to rub your eyes a little bit for the new NHL reality to come into proper focus.