Given some supposed (and understandable) pushback from players, it appears the NHL is looking into how possible it might be for teams to play in their home cities if the current season resumes.
The campaign currently is on pause amid the COVID-19 pandemic, but recent reports indicated the idea of teams going to, essentially, a division host city to finish up the season was being kicked around. From there, the teams really would only go back and forth from the arena to a hotel until their respective seasons concluded.
With that plan, the goal would be to play out the rest of the regular season and go into the postseason. But the obvious issue is separating players and staff from their families for as long as possibly three or four months depending on the length of the playoff run.
So, according to the New York Post’s Larry Brooks, players appeared to push back on the idea of going to host cities, and now the league is looking into the possibility of just playing at teams’ home cities.
“The NHL seems to be pivoting from its plan to reopen the season in four centralized locations and is now investigating the possibility of playing games in its teams’ home cities, multiple sources have told The Post,” Brooks wrote.
“The league is dealing with a myriad of hypotheticals, but it is believed that the players have pushed back on the prospect of spending months in a hotel apart from their families. Hence, the league is studying this alternative that is believed to have surfaced in the aftermath of Wednesday’s virtual meeting of the NHL/NHLPA Return to Play Committee that includes five players.”
Brooks also notes the league has not ruled out just going straight to the playoffs. Regardless, the NHL is going to have to take things slow and come up with something agreeable to both sides — which likely won’t be an easy task.
