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.
0 Comments (5 conversations)
Hockeyhead
I am sorry, but even having some kind of a playoff with out fans in the arena is a stretch IMO. The CV curve may have flattened, but cases are not declining, possibly increasing into June. There is still a dearth of testing and limited contact tracing. It is a lot of people interacting to even have the players play with out fans in the arena. Maybe the NHL should use the 2020 space on the Stanley Cup to memorialize and pay tribute to all of the poor souls who have perished from the CV. Many of them needlessly due to the failed response to the pandemic by the U.S. government. Sorry to be the negative Norman, I just don’t see it happening with out more new cases of CV happening. This is still super serious.
Goblynkyng
Ya, I get that being away from your family sucks, but there are thousands of people in the military that do it a LOT! I was lucky in the navy never having to do it myself, but I knew lots of guys that had kids they never met until the kid was like 6 months old, missed important milestones in their kid’s lives. One guy even missed his only daughter’s marriage cuz he was deployed. These people don’t get paid like these athletes either. I don’t have much sympathy on that. That said, I always come down on the player’s side in labor disputes. I have even less sympathy for billionaire owners
The big difference here is pro athletes didn’t sign up for that kind of separation and people who served (appreciate you!) understood that might be part of the deal. Athletes shouldn’t get dinged on human levels simply because they make a lot of money. They already miss out on a significant portion of their time with their families as is (by choice) but this would be to an extreme degree.
That said, the only players who would be doing it for two months would be the Cup teams as the teams who get eliminated could just…go home. With the players already receiving 85% of their season salaries, I’m curious how the NHLPA balances all of this.
Ender_25
You also needlessly had to somehow turn a noble gesture of memorialization political by unequivocally stating a failed response by the U.S. Government. There were good things and bad things that many countries did to try to protect people and some of them saved lives. I actually liked your idea in some ways, I just hate those definitive statements like your take is somehow everyone’s conclusion and truth.
Hockeyhead
Yes, I will admit the mistake of politicizing a comment on the DNVR Avs forum where people go to escape politics. Also your point is well taken that one persons’ definitive statements are not everyone else’s truth and or conclusion. My frustration with the entire situation and my personal perceptions about the government’s response boiled out of the pot. History will be the final judge about what was done well and what was not in responding to the pandemic. I still believe that if the playoffs are cancelled, it would be an awesome gesture by the NHL to use the space on the cup for the victims of the CV.
ColoradoFanOxford
They are talking something here in the UK for the Premier League. It’s pretty nuts, and assumes that it’s easier to control things at a few locations rather than more. But the issue isn’t venues, it’s human behavior. And even if there are more people involved in more venues, the risk isn’t that much greater.
At this point, it may be time for leagues to face up to reality and just start thinking about next year. We won’t get a vaccine in the next 12 months (though we are already running human trials here in Oxford). So the question is, does sports make sense in empty venues? Is it watchable when it feels like an exhibition? Without gate admissions how many clubs in the NHL to say nothing of soccer leagues and even baseball are financially viable. For many of them, not playing (and finding a way to reduce contracts in the interim) may actually be the best thing to do for survival.
Sooner or later the realities that we need to get on with daily life, that most people face little risk, and that we are all going to go bankrupt will kick in. That’s why in 1968/69, the Hong Kong flu didn’t cause any missed classes, work days or NHL games. When you can’t afford to be maximum safe, you aren’t. Sports leagues and politicians have to work together. But for now, I have sadly moved into the “wait for next year” camp. But that maybe because I living in the UK now instead of Colorado. Different worlds.
In reality, I’m honestly with you that the focus should be on next season, that they should cancel this year. I think they hold the draft in late June, go through free agency on July 1 and proceed as normal from there. If we get to September and there are still restrictions, then start pushing things back as necessary from there. It feels like they are going to jam this thing in and it’s going to have a trickle down effect that could last a couple of years. They know better than I what they need to do to weather this storm from a financial perspective and if this is it, then so be it. And selfishly I want an Avs Cup run >_>
briggs1628
Here’s how I would set things up if they put me in charge, I think it covers most of the concerns. I would go with the 4 hub city idea and select 4 of the following cities, Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal. Since they will be needing a lot of testing, I think it would probably be a good idea to eliminate American politics from the equation. All of those cities have plenty of infrastructure in place including ample practice facilities for temporary team headquarters. Each team would designate their travel party including players, Black Aces, coaches, trainers, management, doctors, cooks, select local media, and broadcasters. Depending on what gets worked out between the league and the PA I’m sure they could come to some agreement to bring along designated immediate family members for players with young families. Since nobody is doing much traveling these days, I doubt it would be too much of a problem to get 2-3 hotels of NHL quality in each city to each take on a few teams and dedicate a couple of floors to each travel party. Also quarantined in those hotels with the teams would be the flight crews for their charters, the charter bus drivers needed to shuttle everyone around between the facilities in that city, any hotel personnel needed for housekeeping/maintenance/security, league representatives, and selected national and international press and broadcasters. All food and ingredients would be delivered to the hotels and then prepared by the team provided chefs and served in the hotel. all of these groups are surveillance tested and anyone that develops symptoms or tests positive is immediately quarantined in an isolated location and looked after by separate trainers (AHL personnel?) The broadcast trucks could broken down and moved into the arena (with no fans, the atriums in the arenas could easily handle a more spaced out control center with 3 dedicated broadcasts for each game (home, road, and national). 3 separate broadcast booths could be set up for each broadcast team as well, and local studio shows would be handled either from the home city or generic studio sets in the arenas shared by the different crews. Needless to say everything would from hotels to planes to busses to broadcast equipment to locker rooms to training facilities to gym facilities to each players equipment and laundry would be cleaned and sanitized between each use. Once set up in the hubs after your “training camp” at home each site could easily host 3 games a day and finish a modified end of regular season in relatively short order. Then you shift any teams that might need to shift for the playoffs so that all division games are at a specific hub for the first round and then cut down to 2 hubs for the second round and then one final city for the conf. finals and SCF.
earl08
On one hand: players aren’t paid for the post season; on the other hand: post season success translates into future contract earnings based on reputation.
Random thought: since they can spy on us with our phones already, why not flip the switch? Connect all our phones to the arena sound system, and cameras to the screens to simulate fans.