Indo Canadian News News That Matters
With the passing of days in December, the National Hockey League (NHL) and the NHL Players’ Association (NHLPA) had almost officially left the unrealistic target date of January 1 in order to abandon the game in 2020-21 season.
According to the sources, the NHL shared multiple draft schedules with NHLPA on Thursday (Dec 3), including 52 and 56 games regular season scenarios, which would begin in mid of January 2021.
The exact start date was not realized in the discussion, and the discussion continued until Thursday night. After or before January 15, it may happen for a few days as both parties seek to maximize the number of games.
The training camp will open around 10 to 14 days before the scheduled start date, possibly around January 1 or January 2.
In addition, the seven teams that did not qualify for the 24-team rematch format in August can still choose to start their voluntary training camp a week earlier in late December. This is still a topic of discussion between the two sides, with continuing negotiations.
The number of games the National Hockey League can squeeze will be the key. More games led to more income, which also reduces the debt that the player must repay the owner in the following seasons.
At this time, the National Hockey League and the NHL Players’ Association believed that there is not enough track to conclude even 60-game regular season and award the Stanley Cup championship trophy in early July. But a 56-game season that can be divided evenly among 7 teams (Canada) and 8 teams (U.S.), and this makes sense for a variety of reasons.
Mr. Gary Bettman, Commissioner of NHL, said in an interview with Sports Business Journal on Wednesday that the league’s only focus is to complete the 2021 campaign in time.
“I think this is the most important thing: What we’re focused on is trying to get through the 2021 season so we can be back in position for 2021-22 to [get back to] normalcy. Based on everything that we are hearing, we can look at normalcy by the time we get to ’21-22 with whatever happens this season,” Mr. Bettman said.
The source said that Thursday’s back and forth had nothing to do with the NHL’s recent economic requirements, which has not been resolved. The NHLPA did not shake the position of the two sides on the extension of the Collective Bargaining Agreement approved in July, and correctly explained all the economic realities related to the pandemic.
