Report: Flames (and other Canadian clubs) could move to USA for 2020-21 season
By Ryan Pike
3 years agoFolks, we’re going to hear a lot of weird, wacky stuff over the next few days as the NHL and NHLPA hammer out the Return to Play Protocols for the 2020-21 campaign. And Chris Johnston just provided some weird, wacky stuff on Sportsnet’s site.
The Canadian teams could end up moving to the United States if details can’t be worked out for them to play in Canada.
So here’s the deal: for the Canadian Division to be a thing, the provincial health authorities have to approve of the plans and the travel, and presumably the federal government will also have some input. That adds a level of extra bureaucracy to some pretty intense hashing out of minute details between the league and the players.
Here’s Johnston:
The NHL would prefer to have each of its seven Canadian teams based out of its own city and arena for a 56-game regular season. Play would be entirely within the realigned division, travel would be exclusively domestic and national border issues wouldn’t come into play.However, that plan requires approval from health authorities in Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta and British Columbia and it’s believed to have met some opposition. The government is believed to prefer the bubble setup the NHL used for its summer return-to-play in Edmonton and Toronto, according to sources, but the league doesn’t believe it’s feasible to recreate that for an entire season.
The NHL sure would like to play a 2020-21 season and the fans and players seem to lean in that direction as well, presuming that such an endeavour could be done without risking public health or that of those involved in the undertaking of the games.
We’ll have more on this story as it continues to unfold.
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