The COVID19 pandemic has wreaked havoc across the globe, with economies in shambles and businesses shuttering. The sports industry has not been exempted from the chaos.
This past week, the Elite Ice Hockey League (EIHL) in the United Kingdom, called time on the coming 2020-21 season and suspended operations.
There remains some hope that the league will find a clear path to opening sooner rather later, but the suspension has caused an exit of players from their EIHL clubs to the American shores and the ECHL minor league.
The National Hockey League has managed its postseason in the two Canadian bubble cities of Toronto and Edmonton. The postseason has gone off without a hitch and COVID19 testing has been thorough and absent of any positive cases among the league’s players and staff.
Transfers from the EIHL have included players coming over the Coventry Blaze, Manchester Storm, and Dundee Stars.
Thus far it has not been a mass exodus from the EIHL, one has to assume players are signing contracts with escape clauses to return to the EIHL if and when they resume play in 2021.
The NHL, AHL, and ECHL, as well as Single-A leagues (SPHL, FPHL), are slated to get the 2020-21 season underway in late fall, early winter of 2020. That start timeline depends, in large part, on the status of the COVID19 pandemic. The British government recently re-instituted a lockdown because of a resurgence in the virus.
Despite the decline in cases in the US’s metropolitan areas of New York, New Jersey, and other east coast areas, COVID19 has been far from eradicated.
Goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy #88 and Erik Cernak #81 of the Tampa Bay Lightning and Sean Couturier #14 of the Philadelphia Flyers
As the NHL’s Stanley Cup Final moves on to crowing a new champion, plans for the new season across the US hockey markets are needing to come together quickly and efficiently. That means the new season, with a proposed 1st of December start date, will be enticing fans and many oddsmakers from NJ’s top online betting sites, to see who makes the best choices in the upcoming 2020 NHL Entry Draft in October, and who puts the best team on the ice for the preseason and 2020-21 campaigns.
With so many variables and need for adherence to safety and health measures across the globe, with players transferring between countries, the next season is eagerly awaited and anticipated, but with a touch of hesitancy.
It will be intriguing to watch the impact of the EIHL’s skaters in the North American leagues. A good showing may keep them from returning across the pond.
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