NHL eyeing January puck-drop for shortened season, reports suggest
Posted December 4, 2020 12:11 pm.
Last Updated December 4, 2020 12:16 pm.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — Watching live hockey in a month might be possible with reports suggesting the NHL is inching closer to dropping the puck on a shortened season starting mid-January.
Host Andrew Walker, with NEWS 1130’s sister station Sportsnet 650, says many details are still in the works, but the drive to get the league started again is there.
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“It’s a major business. It’s not only the players and the owners but it’s a lot of people employed too, so stuff like this needs to get going on,” he says. “It’s going to take work, it’s going to take extra safety protocols, obviously from players and teams. They have to agree on the schedule, and they still have to determine where these games are going to be played. But everyone involved – the players and the teams – want to get this going, eventually.”
As for the Canucks, Walker says it’s hard to say if they’ll play in Rogers Arena or how COVID-19 case numbers and health protocols will impact the season.
“Are the Canucks going to be in a hub city and get to leave it every few weeks? Or, because of the only seven Canadian teams, is travel going to be permitted within the country and playing in each other’s areas. That’s a possibility too, considering you’re not crossing the border,” he says.
“We know they’re going to do their best to start a season. It sure sounds like they’re going to report to training camp early into the new year and then that season would start mid-January.”
RELATED: B.C. hockey leagues adapting to pandemic despite new COVID-19 order
When the NHL resumed earlier in the year during the pandemic, it operated on a hub city basis and required health official approval on regulations. For now, it’s not clear what requirements the league will need to meet as Canada navigates through the second surge of COVID-19.
Walker adds the league has felt the financial impact from the virus throwing games off course, and “the way to get yourself out of it is you need to play, you need to generate some revenue.”
