The NHL has drawn up a number of scenarios to be used once it has been determined it’s safe to take the league off its current pause to play the rest of the regular season and playoffs — and one idea is to hold those games at neutral sites, NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly told ESPN on Friday.
Representatives from a few cities in the United States and Canada have made a pitch to host games when the league decides what steps it will take to play the rest of the 2019-20 campaign.
“We do have people putting together the comprehensive laundry list of what we would need from facilities and evaluating some facilities on some level,” Daly said. “But I can’t tell you we’ve even finished creating a list [of potential sites], much less narrowed it down.
The NHL has said it would like to resume the regular season, which was postponed March 12 due to the coronavirus pandemic, and finish the final 12 to 13 games leading into the postseason. If the league does have the go-ahead to play games, neutral sites are a tempting option because some NHL cities have stay-at-home orders that may not allow the teams to hold games there.
This is where cities such as Grand Forks, N.D., Manchester, N.H., and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan could be an option for games with no fans present, according to ESPN.
“We’re just starting to get our minds around that,” Daly said. “It’s kind of a combination of things, like when we can start a regular season [in 2020-21] and how much time we need for an offseason, and then what does the playoff format look like, in terms of knowing what you need to have a regular season.”
The league hasn’t made a decision on what sites would work and if those sites are even feasible for ensuring players’ well-being.
“My sense of the players is that they’re very anxious to return. Obviously, they want to be healthy and safe,” Daly said. “If a particular player had a particular concern, we’ve had similar situations in the past and we as a league have been sensitive and receptive to that situation.”
The NHL would not be wading into unfamiliar territory by holding games at sites that do not have franchises.
In 1992, the league agreed on a settlement after a 10-day strike to organize 24 regular-season games in the 1993 and 1994 season at neutral sites, with some of those host cities, such as Dallas and Miami, later earning relocated or expansion franchises. Saskatoon was also one of the cities that hosted NHL games during that time.