The National Hockey League pulled a rabbit out of its helmet to conclude the 2019-20 season and conduct the post season and Stanley Cup Final.
By any metric, the season ended on a positive note and the SARS-COV-2 virus was held in check. 
The Entry Draft and free agency seasons were equally without incident.
Since the close of the #COVID19 season, the NHL has looked at 1 January 2021 as the start of the new campaign.
That means another compressed schedule and race between games and a pandemic that knows no borders or turnstile.
“That is a work in progress, influenced largely by what we’re hearing from the medical experts, and we talk to some pretty highly placed people without name-dropping,” Commissioner Gary Bettman said earlier this week.
“COVID[-19] is going through a second wave, which could be worse than the first wave, and between Thanksgiving and the aftermath and what they think is going to happen for Christmas and the aftermath, we are taking our time and making sure that as we look for ways to move forward we’re focused on health and safety and doing the right things.”
The Commissioner’s comments came during a conference sponsored by Sports Business Journal’s Dealmakers in Sports.
A compact schedule, with reduced number of games and adjusted divisions and competition, would be intended as a prelude to “normalcy” for the 2021-22 season in the fall of 2021.
“I think this is perhaps the most important thing,” the Commissioner said. “What we’re focused on is trying to get through the ’20-21 season so that we can be back in position for ’21-22 to normalcy. … We are hopeful and optimistic based on everything we’re hearing that we can look at normalcy by the time we get to ’21-22 whatever happens this season.”
Before throwing stones at the league or commissioner’s office, remember this is a still a new landscape with shifting sands under the ice sheet. Until a SARS-COV-2 vaccine is approved and distributed to the general public (after first responders and healthcare specialists) the pandemic will continue to rage and spread in hotspots.
Local municipalities throughout North America have instituted responses that are specific to the locale. This has caused hardship for lower minor leagues and their teams. The Southern Professional Hockey League and Federal Prospects Hockey League have seen teams shutter ahead of any decision for the coming season. The ECHL has seen the entire Norther Division close for the season before training camps open.
“If you’re playing a regular schedule of games, you can’t quarantine players for 14 days as you’re moving in and out of the country, which is why, among the other issues that are going to impact a possible season, is we literally would have to realign and create a situation where maybe the teams in Canada only play each other, and we have to realign the way all of our teams are playing competitively,” Bettman said.
“It’s part of the myriad of issues that we’re dealing with, which is why when people say, ‘Oh, well, they’re trying to renegotiate,’ the answer to all of this is, we’ve got a lot of issues and a lot of problems to deal with, and the system is going to be stressed for everyone. And is there an appetite for working through all of those issues?”
The NHL has reserves and its member teams may have enough to survive another fan-absent season.
Player salaries, facility maintenance, staff support, and player obligations beyond salaries are tightening an already thin budget line and even thinner profit margin.
“Whatever the revenues are, the players only get 50 percent,” Commissioner Bettman said. “And if we overpay them and they don’t pay us back in the short term, they have to pay us back over time. There will be stresses on the system, and we’ve had discussions about what those stresses are and how they might be dealt with, but we’re not trying to say you must do X, Y and Z. We’re trying to look for ways to continue to work together.
“I know it’s being portrayed as something else, and it’s unfortunate and it’s inaccurate, because at the end of the day, if the system gets stressed, it’s going to be stressed for both of us.
“If we have to pay out lots of cash, two-thirds of which is going to come back to us, that may cause some stress, but we’ll have to deal with it if we’re going to move forward. And by the same token, if the players owe us more money than anybody imagined, the salary cap could be flat or close to flat for the next five or six years, and players into the future will be repaying what we’re owed.
“So the [situation] isn’t like, well, we demand a renegotiation. To the contrary, it’s we see the way the system is going to be impacted. Is it something that makes sense to deal with in the context of everything else that we may have to do, which is out of the ordinary and unanticipated, in order to be in a position to possibly play?”
The disappointing fact of the #COVID19 pandemic is that everyone will suffer. How we all respond to this pandemic will decide how life returns to “normal”, not the NHL or any other aspect of our entertainment environment. The sick and dying will not be a position to buy tickets or new third jerseys. The dead will certainly be otherwise occupied.
As of this writing, the English Premiere Football League has reportedly been seeking loans for its member clubs. The richest sports league is in need of cash to sustain its viability. What is the status of all other leagues beyond the thin veneer of “all is well”?
Giving the NHL space and latitude to adjust and create an entirely new schedule and scheme for what would have been the 2020-21 season is the best any observer or fan can do.
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