NHL Receiving Neutral Site Playoff Pitches
Written by SOURCE on April 11, 2020
Every major sport is at an immediate standstill due to the rapid spread of COVID-19. The NHL “paused” all of their activity on March 12, with 189 more regular season games left to play on their calendar. The regular season was originally supposed to end on April 4. While the National Hockey League’s main objective has been attempting to establish a solid timeline on when the season might be “unpaused,” if at all, they are still accepting pitches for what neutral sites the playoffs might be held at.
On the topic of starting the regular season back up, NHL commissioner Bill Daly told ESPN on Friday that “we’re just starting to get our minds around that.”
“It’s kind of a combination of things, like when we can start a regular season [in 2020-21] and how much time we need for an offseason, and then what does the playoff format look like, in terms of knowing what you need to have a regular season,” he added.
While considering altered formats for the postseason and playoffs, several cities and venues across North America have also offered to host potential neutral-site playoff games. “We do have people putting together the comprehensive laundry list of what we would need from facilities and evaluating some facilities on some level,” Daly said about the sites. “But I can’t tell you we’ve even finished creating a list [of potential sites], much less narrowed it down.”
The NBA has also considered this, contemplating the possibility of having all teams finish a condensed version of the regular season and playoffs in Las Vegas. The NBA has also reportedly been “angling” to cancel the entire season in favor of starting fresh for the 2020-2021 season. It’s still hard to say whether any of these are viable options for both the NHL and NBA, but hopefully we can slow the spread of COVID-19 and get sports back soon.
