Avalanche Roundtable: Is the NHL's hub city idea realistic?

As each of the sports leagues investigate possible avenues of returning to play, there have been a number of unique ideas thrown around. Baseball has talked about utilizing the infrastructure already in place with spring training and temporarily splitting up the leagues that way and the NHL has thrown around a similar idea of having “hub cities” host games while the country continues to deal with the ongoing pandemic.

The idea of hub cities seems to have gained traction with the league office but certainly not the players, who don’t seem as keen on the idea of being stationed in a city that isn’t theirs away from their families for an extended period of time.

So, for today’s topic: Even if the league could work out the logistics of playing games in ‘hub cities’, how do you feel about the idea of separating players from their families for up to two months (the time it takes a normal postseason to take place) simply for the sake of finishing the season?

AJ: I think whatever machinations the league has on finishing the regular season probably need to be put to bed. Getting a full postseason should be the goal. It’s going to take the league and players union working together to find an avenue to make that happen because players will not be keen on the concept of lengthy isolation away from their home cities and families. There are only so many chances at the Stanley Cup, though, and I can’t imagine the players don’t come to an agreement somewhere. They want to play, the league wants them to play. I’m confident we’ll get a competitive and full postseason despite all of this but the players are certainly going to have to make serious concessions to make it happen. I think hub cities make sense from a league perspective but not a player one. They need a new idea but I think we’re inching towards something positive here.

Evan: I definitely understand from the player’s point of view why they wouldn’t want to do it. As a dad with a young daughter, I wouldn’t want to be separated from her for a month or more. Most of these players have young children and there is just so much that can change in even a few weeks, let alone a few months that no parent would really want to miss. The regular season should not be an option at this point, as I just don’t see the point of it or how it could work. The logistics of this entire operation seems very tough. All it would take is one player or staff member contracted COVID-19 for everything to get shut down again. I do think players would ultimately suck it up and finish the playoffs away from their families, but there will be some pushback.

Rudo: Look, I love the DNVR fam, but if AJ asked me to go spend two months straight in a foreign city, away from my wife and dog, alone, I’m out. Granted I don’t get paid millions of dollars nor do I have the chance to raise the Cup but there is a massive difference from the standard regular season road trips where two weeks on the road is seen as eternity and this. Any form of finishing out the regular season seems wholly impractical, bottom feeder teams essentially have zero incentive to show up for these games beyond the paycheck.

A postseason might be more feasible, teams eliminated in the first round would only be there for two or three weeks depending on the ramp-up (assuming teams are allowed to hold camps in their own cities beforehand). Any teams the move on would have a long stretch away from home but maybe that is the price you pay to compete for a cup? At the end of the day, many people across the globe live far away from their families to support them and are doing so for much less than seven figures. There is no perfect answer here but I believe the Cup can, and for the most part should be awarded if possible. Even if it means jumping into a modified playoff format.