COVID-19 and Sports: Many Unanswered Questions Facing NHL, Golden Knights With Jan. 1 Targeted Season Start Date
By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
The National Hockey League wants to start the new new season Jan. 1, a mere month and a half away.
But there’s only one problem.
Everything.
How to hold a new season during a COVID-19 pandemic that has claimed 245,000 lives in the USA.
NHL Gary Bettman does not plan to use coronavirus pandemic bubbles like the ones in Toronto and Edmonton that were implemented to finish the 2019-20 season.
But Bettman said the league is looking at everything from allowing teams to play in their own arenas to the idea of teams playing in a hub where they set up shop for 10-12 days to using a hybrid model with some teams playing the hub and some playing at their home venues with testing protocols in effect.
This is life during a pandemic, especially one where infection cases are increasing in Nevada and in many other NHL markets across the country. That’s why the NHL is also looking at having an all-Canadian division to keep Canada-based teams north of the border in light of the spiking COVID-19 cases in the United States.
Not having fans at NHL games would be devastating for the league because about 50 percent of all revenues are linked to game revenues. Will fans be allowed? Nobody knows. VGK owner Bill Foley has said that a Feb. 1 start looks more realistic and that he will need fans at games for the Knights to be financially viable in 2020-21.
Besides facing possible temporary hubs and realignment, the Vegas Golden Knights will be playing with its biggest name and face of the franchise — goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury — serving as a back-up to anointed starter Robin Lehner.
Before the pandemic halted the NHL and VGK seasons in March, the Golden Knights were doing well in attendance by filling T-Mobile Arena to 105.4 percent of capacity while also generating lots of revenue from selling licensed VGK logo gear.
But since then, Fleury has been tagged as a back-up and popular defensemen Deryk Engelland, Nate Schmidt, and Jon Merrill will not be returning to the team. Engelland gave the stirring and emotional speech before the Golden Knights played its first-ever home game Oct. 10, 2017, only nine days after the horrific mass shooting on the Strip, the deadliest shooting in U.S. history.
With so many unanswered questions facing the Vegas Golden Knights and their fans, at least the Henderson Silver Knights — the Golden Knights’ American Hockey League affiliate — offered some tangible news with the release of their hockey sweaters and the opening of their training center, Lifeguard Arena in downtown Henderson.
