Kings

Kings News: NHL’s Proposed Neutral Site Plan To Resume Hockey Hits A Snag

The National Hockey League (NHL) had a plan to resume the 2019-2020 season by utilizing neutral sites for teams. That, however has hit a major snag.

According to ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski, there were numerous issues that caused the proposed idea to not move beyond concept ideas. Wyshynski stated:

“(The) plan never got out of the concept stages due to lack of accommodations, and challenges in staging and televising games.”

The concept, would be similar to the one MLB has been planning on doing in Arizona. The NHL would decide on one city to host each one of its divisions, possibly quarantine its players in nearby hotels when not playing or practicing, and of course test them daily for virus symptoms.

To speed up the process and catch up the scheduled playoffs, games could be played in a triple-header style format where 6 different teams could face off in the same building, one after the other. At that rate, the remaining regular-season games could be completed within a few weeks.

Word around the league is that everyone is on board with getting hockey restarted, approvals from coaches, staff, and players all seem to be there. Despite the amount of support, hurdling through policies and issues such as the USA/Canada borders being closed needs to be resolved.

The regular season opened on October 2, 2019, and halted on March 12 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The playoffs were originally supposed to begin on April 4th, 2020. Owners and the league are hopeful that play resume in July of this year.

ESPN’s Emily Kaplan reported earlier today with some hopeful information:

“Hearing the favorites (To land an nhl team) are Raleigh, Minnesota, Edmonton and TBD in the Atlantic Division” 

There has been no information on the possible location where the Los Angeles Kings could be playing. With a stacked division, and many teams already on the west coast, things will look completely different. At this point, eager fans won’t care about who is playing who as long as the season and playoffs can resume.

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