Sound of Hockey gets back to its roots this week, with a more straight-forward episode to appease the die-hard SOH listeners. Lots of banter about the NHL’s return to play plans, which gets the idea mill churning a bit for John, Andy, and Darren.
The guys also do a fun exercise in this episode of determining which NHL teams have the most nonsensical names.
Segments this week include Goalie Gear Corner, Weekly One-Timers, and Tweets of the Week.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman detailed the league’s Return To Play plan Tuesday that includes a 24-team playoff format which would allow the NHL to conduct a post season after pausing their regular season in March due to the COVID-19 disease.
His live streamed announcement came a couple of days after the NHLPA approved the plan over this past weekend.
“We are hopeful the Return To Play Plan will allow us to complete the season and award the Stanley Cup in a manner in which the health and safety of our players, on-ice officials, team staff and associated individuals involved are paramount,” Bettman said. “Accordingly, an essential component of the Plan is a rigorous, regular schedule of testing.”
In the plan, the regular season is considered finished and the top 24 teams based on their point percentage will participate in the post season. There will be an initial qualifying round made up of best-of-five series played between the bottom eight teams in each conference to determine who will make up the playoff brackets. The top four teams in each conference are automatically in the playoffs and will play a round robin tournament among themselves to determine their seeding.
The eight teams who win their qualifying series will advance into the first round of the playoffs.
Games will be played without fans and in two hub cities that have yet to be determined. One city will be in the west and one in the east and teams will be allowed to send a maximum of 50 team staff to the hubs.
In the Eastern Conference qualifying round, Pittsburgh will play Montreal, Carolina will play the New York Rangers, the New York Islanders will play Florida, and Toronto will play Columbus.
Out west it will be Edmonton playing Chicago, Nashville playing Arizona, Vancouver playing Minnesota, and Calgary facing Winnipeg.
Despite the announcement, there are still a number of questions to be answered.
Bettman said that they are not setting any start dates because the timing will still be determined by medical and civic officials as to when it is safe for teams to congregate. They are hoping that the clubs could get together for a training camp sometime in the first half of July.
“I think its conceivable we’re playing at the end of July or the beginning of August and will play into September,” Bettman said “If it has to slide it will slide.”
A late start will obviously impact the start of next season but Bettman said that the league is positive that the 2020-2021 season will be played in its entirety even if they have to start as late as January.
The first step to returning is what Bettman is calling ‘Phase 2’, which is allowing players to begin training in small groups at their team facilities, and could start in early June.
Players will be travelling from Europe and across the Canadian-U.S. border. Currently, the United States border is closed and Canada is requiring a 14-day self quarantine for anyone who is allowed to cross its border.
“We have been dealing with the governments in both the United States and Canada,” NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said Tuesday. “The acting Director of Homeland security, in the last three days, signed an order that made professional athletes essential personnel which allows them to travel in the U.S.
“The one issue that we continue to work actively on is the mandatory federal quarantine that is in place for all people who travel into Canada. We are having various discussions with various people in the Canadian government.”
Daly added that if that restriction can’t be lifted it will take Canadian cities out of the running to be host cities.
The hub cities in consideration are Chicago, Columbus, Dallas, Edmonton, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, Toronto, and Vancouver.
While the qualifying rounds will be best-of-five series the league has yet to determine the length of the first and second-round playoff series. The Commissioner did indicate that the conference finals and Stanley Cup Final would be a best-of-seven.
The NHL’s Draft lottery will be held on June 26th and Bettman correctly described the process as “a bit complicated.”
Using three to six drawings over one or two phases, the lottery will determine the first 15 picks of the 2020 draft. Bettman wasn’t kidding about it being complicated.
The seven teams that failed to make the post season will be eligible for the lottery as will the eight teams that lose in the opening qualifying round. The first drawing in phase one will include eight placeholder spots since the losing teams in the qualifying round won’t be known.
Phase one will determine the first three picks in the draft with a drawing for each slot. If one of the place holder spots wins one of the top three slots a second phase will be required, consisting of all eight eliminated teams to determine which team wins that spot.
Those teams have a less than six-percent odds of winning the top spot so the chances of a team in the qualifying round winning the top pick are slim. But, they do have a shot.
Detroit has the best odds at getting the top spot with an 18.5% chance while the Ottawa Senators are second with 13.5%.
Testing players and team personnel will obviously be a major focus on any return to play scenario. Bettman felt that they would be able to provide an adequate number tests for each team that would not impact the public’s ability to be tested. Daly added that one positive test shouldn’t require the league to stop but also said that the league couldn’t have an outbreak.
This situation is far from a done deal.
As the COVID-19 situation is constantly changing, the league, and the NHLPA will continue to monitor and update their plan as time moves on.
Despite that unknown, we do appear to be one step closer to seeing NHL hockey again.
A few weeks ago, we sent out a request to complete a fan survey. The response was humbling and overwhelming. Thank you to all who took the time to fill out the survey. Here are the results.
Demographics
No major surprises in the basic demographic info other than it is amazing to see the reach of this community. There were people from 30 different states and 9 different countries that responded to the survey.
Current Hockey Fandom
Even though it is small, I love that 10% of respondents are “New to hockey”. Those are the folks that are starting to engage in hockey despite no actual NHL team yet. We should expect that number to grow as we get closer to puck drop in 2021. I also received some feedback that there should have been an option between die-hard and casual, as well as fandom regarding the WHL. That is noted.
A little surprised that despite no NHL hockey in the immediate area, roughly 80% of folks have seen an NHL game live.
It would be interesting to see where everyone is seeing games. Personally, I take a hockey vacation once or twice a year to attend games in different NHL arenas.
We received a lot of comments on affordability and pricing. I also noticed a lot of comments about people coming from outside the Puget Sound. Here are a few of the comments:
“I live in Alaska but will definitely attend 5 games maybe more.”
“I live in Boise Idaho so maybe 2-4 games.”
“Market the team better in Eastern Wa! Involve youth hockey over here too!”
“Hopefully 1 game if we can travel back to the states from Australia”
Over the years, a few WHL fans were concerned about how the NHL coming to town could impact the WHL teams in the area. Based on respondents, it appears to increase interest in the WHL.
It would appear hockey fans have the least amount of crossover with NBA and MLS fans. While the NFL ranks second and the MLB third among respondents across the professional sports leagues. Another way to look at this is that entertainment dollars and viewing could shift from the Mariners and Seahawks to the NHL. It is unlikely that either the Mariners or the Seahawks feel any material dollars shift, but I’ve had several folks over the years mention that they would dump their Seahawks season tickets to get NHL season tickets.
The Team
People seem to like the balance approach. Here are some of the comments:
“Start with a name.”
“balanced. Focus on the future with fun, young players but surround that core with an experienced, leadership driven veteran group.”
“Progressive improvements and hopefully playoff berth in first 4-5 seasons.”
“Don’t feel pressure to match what Vegas did, slow and steady.”
“Build a Dynasty like the Red Wings or Montreal.”
Keep in mind that Gallant, Babcock, Laviolette, and Boudreau were the only pre-determined selections which is why they have so many votes. “Not Mike Babcock” got a number of write-in votes, so maybe we should take 1% away from Mike Babcock.
Here are some of the other comments:
“Consider hiring a successful coach from the AHL.”
“I don’t know enough about all the possible coaches. I’m sure Ron Francis will make a good decision.”
“I don’t know any hockey coaches. I’m brand new to the sport.”
Good to see our fans with some reasonable expectations after Vegas far exceeded expectations in their first year.
This was a fun exercise for us to go through and I enjoyed reading though the comments that people provided. Thanks for participating.
Very fun episode this week, as Sound of Hockey overuses the phrase “quote unquote,” and welcomes a “special guest” to the podcast.
The “special guest” gives his “story” about helping to bring “NHL to Seattle.” And that’s all we can say, because we don’t want to spoil who the surprise guest is.
This week, you will also get a WHL, AHL, and NHL update, a breakdown of the NHLtoSeattle survey that went out last week, and plenty of good chuckles.
Segments this week include Weekly One-Timers, Goalie Gear Corner, and Tweets of the Week.
Sound of Hockey welcomes another awesome guest this week, as World Champion (Team USA) and NCAA Champion (Wisconsin), Annie Pankowski joins the show.
With Pankowski, the guys discuss a variety of topics, from her title run with the Badgers, to her impactful performance in a very bizarre gold medal game at the Women’s World Championship, to her work as an aspiring veterinarian. She even (sort of) helps the guys decide who has it right in the ongoing team puppy debate.
Also on this week’s episode, a WHL update from Andy Eide reveals the challenges being faced suddenly by the Portland Winterhawks, and the guys discuss the Brendan Leipsic fiasco from the past week.
Segments this week include Weekly One-Timers and Tweets of the Week.
Every once in a while, we like to take the pulse on the NHL to Seattle fan base, share the results with everyone, and gather some feedback to continue to build this community.
Please do us a solid and complete this short survey. Feel free to share with other hockey minded folks.
