Despite announcing a training camp start date, the NHL and NHLPA have more details to iron outGETTY IMAGES
The NHL is hoping to restart play “in or around August 1” after announcing training camps will open on July 10, according to TSN’s Pierre LeBrun. It was “important” for the NHL to announce the date for the opening of training camps because there is a large number of players “overseas that have to make travel plans.” The July 10 date “could still change if negotiations drag on in Phase 3 and Phase 4, and those negotiations are just in their infancy right now” (“Insider Trading,” TSN, 6/11). SPORTSNET.ca’s Chris Johnston reports Thursday’s announcement about camps opening “was more of a symbolic step forward in that it finally established a timeline” for things to happen. The NHL and NHLPA have “basically left themselves until the end of June to finalize a return-to-play agreement to vote on.” They still need to:
- Get clarity from the Canadian government “on whether a 14-day quarantine will continue to apply to NHL players entering the country.”
- Finalize the two hub cities where games will be played.
- Reach an agreement on the collective bargaining issues “pertaining to a return to play, which include critical dates, the 2020-21 salary cap, a potential cap on escrow and other contractual matters.”
- Establish protocols that govern Phases 3 and 4, which “include testing, rules governing those who produce a positive result, living conditions in the hub cities, family visits and roughly a thousand other considerations, both big and small” (SPORTSNET.ca, 6/11).
TWO OR THREE WEEKS FOR TRAINING CAMP: In Dallas, Matthew DeFranks notes the league “did not specify how long training camps would be.” However, Stars GM Jim Nill said that teams “shouldn’t need more than two weeks of training camp, plus two exhibition games in a hub city (across a week) to get ready for play to resume.” That would put games “on track to begin in early August” (DALLAS MORNING NEWS, 6/12). In St. Louis, Tom Timmermann notes if the league can hit the July 10 date, almost “four months will have passed since players were on the ice in competition, a break about as long as the offseason for a team that is eliminated after a round or two of the playoffs.” Players have asked “for a three-week training camp because of that” (ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, 6/12).
CANADA COULD LOOSEN QUARANTINE: SPORTSNET.ca’s Mark Spector reported the Oilers, Canucks and Maple Leafs -- the three Canadian teams “vying to become hub cities” -- expect to hear on Friday “that the federal government’s quarantine restrictions have been loosened.” The chances of one of the three markets serving as a hub city “hinge on the federal government’s all but promised elimination -- or at least massaging -- of its 14-day quarantine policy for anyone entering Canada’s borders.” Even if the government “does not entirely lift its 14-day quarantine for players and coaches arriving in Canada, sources say that it is considering ‘extending the quarantine area’ to include both the team employee’s home and the arena.” That would allow incoming players to “at least practice while serving out their quarantine” (SPORTSNET.ca, 6/11). In Toronto, Lance Hornby notes while talks have gone on between the NHL and the Canadian government, it “would be hard for NHL personnel, team support staff and families to come and go from a country that required them to isolate.” That would “point to a couple of U.S. locations getting the nod” as hub cities. Las Vegas, L.A., Dallas and Chicago reportedly are “on the short list, with little or no media present in the rinks, other than a feed broadcast, likely NBC providing pictures back to crews in individual markets” (TORONTO SUN, 6/12).
WHAT'S NEXT? In Columbus, Michael Arace notes while the NHL “plans to finish the season with a 24-team tournament that will decide a Stanley Cup champion,” questions abound “about the future.” Hurricanes announcer John Forslund said, “I worry about next season. I understand the economics of restarting, but the key to me are the bridges -- the ones that have to be crossed next season, including the players’ bridge to a new (collective bargaining agreement). I think it’s all intertwined. And there are a lot of questions” (COLUMBUS DISPATCH, 6/12).
