After a call with their board of governors, the NHL has temporarily suspended the 2019-20 season. In a press release, the league explained their decision:
In light of ongoing developments resulting from the coronavirus, and after consulting with medical experts and convening a conference call of the Board of Governors, the National Hockey League is announcing today that it will pause the 2019‑20 season beginning with tonight’s games.
The NHL has been attempting to follow the mandates of health experts and local authorities, while preparing for any possible developments without taking premature or unnecessary measures. However, following last night’s news that an NBA player has tested positive for coronavirus – and given that our leagues share so many facilities and locker rooms and it now seems likely that some member of the NHL community would test positive at some point – it is no longer appropriate to try to continue to play games at this time.
We will continue to monitor all the appropriate medical advice, and we will encourage our players and other members of the NHL community to take all reasonable precautions – including by self-quarantine, where appropriate. Our goal is to resume play as soon as it is appropriate and prudent, so that we will be able to complete the season and award the Stanley Cup. Until then, we thank NHL fans for your patience and hope you stay healthy.
Last night, the NBA took a similar step after Utah Jazz player Rudy Gobert tested positive for coronavirus (COVID-19). The Jazz and several other NBA teams that had recently played them were instructed to self-quarantine, but there are also concerns that it could spread to the NHL given that teams in several cities use the same arenas for both basketball and hockey. Since then another Jazz player, Donovan Mitchell, has also tested positive.
This morning, the league issued a directive to all teams to cancel practices and media availability until a decision was made. That came after the Columbus Blue Jackets and San Jose Sharks had both already announced they would hold home games without spectators. Major League Soccer also suspended their season for 30 days, along with several other college cancellations.
It is important to note that the league has not cancelled, but suspended the season. That means it does plan on resuming at some point, though it is not clear if they will play out the rest of the regular season, move straight into playoffs or some other combination of the two. In fact, with no real understanding of how the next weeks and months will play out, there is no guarantee that the 2019-20 season even does resume.
There is plenty of uncertainty in the entire sporting world, but the NHL obviously felt it could not proceed due to the public health risk. The AHL is expected to follow the NHL’s lead and suspend the minor league season, meaning no high level professional hockey will take place in North America for the time being.
The NHLPA released a statement agreeing with the decision, noting that it is the “appropriate course of action.”
once again the right move
If Sami Vatanen gets traded but no one sees him play did it actually ever happen?
depending on the length, I would propose any team that has clinched a playoff spot keeps their current seed and those that haven’t clinched a spot (and haven’t already been mathamatically eliminated) all be put in a tournament to determine the remaining playoff teams. that first tournament could take 1-2 weeks and then make the playoff matchups best of 5 (if this drags on).
God fucking damn it. this is out of hand. bullshit, they need to play. they don’t do this for the flu this needs to be gotten under control. are we gonna do debates on TV? is the news gonna stop on TV? are restaurants gonna shut down? If the “normal” ppl got to still go to work where there are a lot of ppl then so should athletes. Get a fucking grip. there’s more then 1000 ppl at the hospital….. suspend that. schools are open, shut them down
Stop
I hope bumpy is being faux ignorant. If not, it seems like picking up activities/hobbies outside of watching sports may be a good prescription for his negative affect.
L
if that’s meant at me……NO! it’s a ridiculous over-reaction. Why do normal ppl have to still work and what not while sports players are treated like living gods. this will piss fans off. especially fans of teams that are title contenders if they normally haven’t been. their enjoyment is being taken away b/c some family wanted to eat rat asshole soup for dinner
what makes them more special then you or I? You still have to work? I still have to work. why can’t they? close everything or nothing. I haven’t heard of any school or college thinking of suspending classes. That’s our KIDS!! but let’s worry about athletes who have the best medical coverage in the damn country. they are more important then our kids apparently
because 20,000 people dont gather in one place to watch “normal” people work
they are saying 500- 1000 ppl gathering should be avoided, right? I know there’s more then 500-1000 kids in highschool’s and slot more then that on college campuses. But not 1 word about them
have it without fans then!
We need schools open so that our children will grow up and know the difference between “then” and “than”.
yes wait for things to get worse before you are proactive like Bumpy paraphrased.
Bumpy actually a number of work places are now telling employees to work from home and you will likely see more in the coming days.
as for players, you understand at least in the NHLs case these players may not be paid during this time right?
if you haven’t heard of schools suspending classes or moving them to online you need to turn on the news.
btw how did you turn this into a complaint against athletes for what schools are or are not doing? lol
lol
If you paid someone millions of dollars, you’d want to protect your investment.
@billyg3222 – beat me to it! ;) then/than, to/too, their/there… and, add “should of” to that list.
maybe he can pick up a book and learn him some?
@DarkSide830 – the book’s too heavy…weighted down with…(gasp!) ADJECTIVES!
auto correct you ass. Or are you one of the government moochers with crap phones
@bumpy – spell checkers ARE NOT substitutes for proof reading! THAT requires reading tools, readily available online!
-Signed,
NOT a government PORKER!
I work at an public elementary school so I can answer your question:
The reason they don’t cancel K-12 schools (until it is absolutely necessary) is because for some people, that is the only way a child will get a meal during the day. Some parents can’t afford childcare if a school is closed for a indeterminate amount of time and have no way to care for their child if they have a job where they can’t telecommute.
At the elementary school I work at they just cancelled a bunch of non important events and have modified the schedule next week. I’m entirely convinced they are going to do a two week shutdown before spring break. (spring break starts on March 30th and the week before are parent teacher conferences… which are still scheduled to happen).
So maybe think about why they aren’t cancelling public schools before you rant and rave like an idiot. You’re being more hysterical than those people raiding the supermarkets. Just stop.
@aloop – I hope that was aimed at @bumpy93, since we’re still having problems with notifications going to the wrong people on posts here.
“Bumpy93”(I quote as it’s hard to believe this person is being authentic), are you one of those in the mens’ rights/mentally challenged?
Do you know how many healthcare workers would not be able to work if schools were closed?
Dude, go outside your basement and experience the world, have empathy because we all have more in common than we have differences, and appreciate the loving world rather than ranting and getting giving yourself prehypertension.
@MacJablonski: Yes it was. I apologise. I didn’t realise this site was having issues with commenting. I’ll be sure to @ in future responses.
Again, I apologise.
@aloop – No apology necessary, my friend. I’ve mentioned this to Gavin a couple of times, but I don’t know if he is in a position to get it fixed. The problem crops up from time to time, but this latest one’s been especially pesky. I’ve even sent an email to PHR Central (link to prohockeyrumors.com), but it doesn’t appear to have been received. I’m expecting it back in my inbox, flagged as “Postage Due”… :)
How do these kids eat in the summer?
So, if the regular season ends now and James Neal does not have 21 goals, Edmonton gets to keep their 3rd round selection in the draft. Too bad for Calgary
I get not wanting to miss out on the gate revenue by playing in front of empty seats, but now they will lose the TV money, too. They should play the games without fans.
Between the teams, broadcasters, officials and needed support staff, we’re talking about 100-120 people, at most. More people will cluster in Walmarts.
I understand their caution, but…don’t see what this actually solves.
@forwhomjoshbelltolls – I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that Health authorities worldwide are “trying” to learn from the mistakes of 1918-1919. To this day, there is still massive disagreement as to where that flu strain originated. Because of WWI censorship, the death toll is vaguely stated from (roughly) 17-100 million. Seen in terms as a % of the global population, the concern has to be more than some would think “appropriate.” It’s not overreaction, even though many will maintain to their graves that it is. Let’s hope none of us see victims of this in our own family trees.
I think the NHL and nba are playing this correct. they don’t need to cancel anything at this point. even if they don’t restart the season till May 01, they could still get the playoffs done by end of July. it effects their off-season more than anything. plus I’m sure their tv deal applies as long as games are played. it’s why they used the phrase “pause”. I’m sure their expectation is these games will be played at some point so the revenue will still come in Vs playing in empty arenas.
The whole point of suspending the season (for all the sports) is to stop/limit spread. Will not allowing fans go a decent way to stopping spread? Of course. But still having players play (with essential staff being present too), you’re not doing much to prevent spread. To boot, you’re now flying these players and refs across the country (and possibly across the Canada/US border) to play games further increasing the chance of spread.
I mean let’s just throw a scenario out there with the assumption that games are closed off to fans. Say a player from the Penguins is confirmed to have Covid-19. Now his teammates are at risk of having it. And so are the refs/team personnel/essential staff. And so are the opposing players. And then you also have to check to see if the players from teams from recently played games might have it too. Its a snowball effect. This is an attempt to stop the snowball before it gets too out of hand.
@JT19 – Well, put! You may not be able to stop the snowball, but you can keep it from growing to unmanageable proportions.
well said JT19
@MacJablonski: it’s only called the “Spanish” flu because Spain had the most open press at that time and were the ones giving accurate information that the rest of the worlds media was being tepid.
So, you’re exactly right.
@JT19: your Pens scenario happened in the NBA last night with the Utah Jazz. So, it’s a very real possibility that it could still happen even if they aren’t playing games.
my point is not against the players, it’s against the higher ups that panic to fast. I think school children would be more important then professional sports leagues. where is high school being postponed or being done from home? I would think that would be the first group that would have a decision like that. It’s not here in Baltimore where I live. What about public transportation? There are so many more important things that should be cancelled before sports
I get your point, but cities are slowly trying to stop non-essential functions at this point. Just because it hasn’t happened in Baltimore yet doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened elsewhere. I won’t come out and say cities have definitely stopped school or work or whatever, but I do know a lot of colleges are basically trying to convert their classes to online to prevent students from spreading it.
The reason why sports are getting shut down first though? They’re non-essential and not more important than most things. Imagine the frenzy and chaos that would come with shutting down public transportation. You suggested/questioned why hospitals weren’t shut down yet in a previous post on this article. Again, they’re an extremely essential part of the fighting this, so as much as they are at a heightened risk to spread they’re also a necessary part to trying to stop the spread/treatment. You shut down whatever is deemed non-essential and try to keep essential things running. You can’t just shut down every single job. The consequences on a micro and macro level would be enormous.
again JT is bang on.
I know the hospital angle, I said it in is pissed mood. My only point is instead of sports, let’s get schools, public transportation, airlines, homeless shelters w 500+ ppl, bars, clubs those type of things figured out before all of the sports act as if it was a zombie invasion. It just seemed as if sports were more important then everything else.
because governments and others are dragging their feet doesn’t mean be mad at sports. finally there are groups being proactive and you are hating them.
@bumpy93- SF closed public schools for 3 weeks, and I believe Ohio and Maryland did the same or for two weeks at least.
Long Island New York schools are starting to close and are going online. All state universities in New York and community colleges are closed and offering online classes.
Have to think too that if sports are played even without fans it promotes more social gatherings at bars or places to watch the games which also helps the spread. While I feel this is slightly out of control with the fear, there is some merit to it obviously, and people are dying. The fact there is so much unknown I think is the true reason for the chaos.
The goal is to keep a huge peak of virus like in Italy which shuts down medical care due to too many patients with to few workers and supplies. Easing the blow over a longer period is much more stable and manageable than one hard quick hit. Many states will soon be faced with keeping all nonessential workers home for a period of time. That’s what’s in front of us and this is the first step in that direction.
I’m all for risk mitigation, but this seems more like risk transfer. Going to the grocery store will likely have as much risk.
Stopping travel makes sense, except half of these players are likely headed to different beaches as we speak.
But, if the choices of extremes are shutting everything down vs. spending the months we should have been preparing calling it a hoax, let’s shut it down.
as my main man dan Kelly used to say, “there’s been a pause in the action”
@captainern – The truly Immortal Hall-of-Famer, the legendary Dan Kelly (the elder) . Missed daily by many of us. Dan Kelly (the son), also well-loved.
Well just finished changing line in my fishing poles down by the river , first cast with new line and hooks caught a small brim with a minnow on hook , time to do some fishing may go down river a bit do some night fishing and catch a nice fat catfish might even snag a alligator snapping turtle and cook him up , guess might as well get some fishing in water getting warmer so may jump in water as well, since no hockey or other sports that have be suspended in pro and college, only cussing and using bad language will use is when fish takes my bait, hate missing my HOCKEY , but is best thing to do to assure everyone’s safety and welfare,
“the action has stopped with 5 minutes to go in the period – let’s pause for a moment”
– dan kelly