Provinces decided to green-light deal on Christmas Eve, making sure NHL did not have to resort to a Plan BGetty Images
The decision by the five Canadian provinces to allow NHL games at home arenas was "music to the ears" of everybody across the NHL, according to Bruce Garrioch of the OTTAWA SUN. The provinces decided to "green-light the deal on Christmas Eve," making sure the league did not have to resort to a Plan B if "health officials weren’t on board." It "took the combined efforts" of the Senators and Maple Leafs' front offices to "help get this agreement in place with Ontario government officials." Senators President of Business Operations Anthony LeBlanc said, “We worked really closely with Ottawa Public Health and the province of Ontario. We kind of tagged-team with MLSE. It worked out well." LeBlanc added, "Looking at it from a business perspective, it’s important to our partners. It’s important to Canadian Tire, Bell and Molson. All these partners that we work with that having naming rights on the building or dasher boards, it’s significant." LeBlanc indicated that the Senators "haven’t completely thrown in the towel on the idea of having fans in the building at some point this season." Team Owner Eugene Melnyk has "mentioned in the past that the team had a plan for a socially distanced crowd of 6,000" at Canadian Tire Centre (OTTAWA SUN, 12/28).
PLAYER ANGLE: NHLPA Exec Dir Don Fehr is "optimistic about what lies ahead," believing that the shortened regular season will "begin as planned on Jan. 13." Fehr is "confident that, with the global administration of a vaccine for COVID-19, more and more fans will be allowed into hockey arenas by the time the NHL playoffs start in the spring." He "expects that whatever is waiting around the corner," the league and the players will be "able to adapt and roll with the punches." In Toronto, Michael Traikos noted as much as the NHL "would like to point to the success of the playoffs as proof that the league can begin the regular season in the middle of a pandemic, what the league has planned is not exactly bubble hockey." The playoffs, in which the NHL did not have a single positive case of COVID-19, "showed that the players respected the rules and took this situation seriously." The NHL will "need that continued level of buy-in from the players if the 2020-21 season is going to be a success" (TORONTO SUN, 12/27).
BUMPY RIDE: In N.Y., Larry Brooks suggested it is "counterintuitive" that the NHL is "now set to go full bore through a winter in which infection rates, hospitalizations and deaths are generally occurring at a higher rate than when the league deemed it unsafe to play." However, health agencies across North America have "given their blessing to the NHL’s plan," so it is not as if NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman is "running an outlaw operation here." Bettman has been "eminently responsible through the pandemic." Brooks: "I don’t blame anyone. I do not think this represents a money grab. I think the effort to play 2020-21 is about maintaining the viability of the business moving forward and saving jobs, not for those in uniform, necessarily, but those who operate in support positions across the industry. But the league and those invested in it should be prepared for a bumpy ride. This is one time neither the NHL nor the NHLPA is in control" (N.Y. POST, 12/27). In Toronto, Damien Cox writes this NHL season is "going to be a bumpy ride." Based on "what we’ve seen in these other sports, we can assume that a few NHL teams will have to play one or more games without an NHL goalie, or with two defencemen, or minus a No. 1 forward line." But the games "must go on, right?" That is the "challenge at hand, and there’s a Stanley Cup waiting at the other end of this season for the team that handles this challenge best." Meanwhile, the NHL said that it will "release the names of infected players this time." Cox: "We’ll believe that when we see it" (TORONTO STAR, 12/28).
