Jay Greenberg: From Our Cheek to Gary's Ears, The Plan to Resume

Some teams had played only 68 games when the season ended. So if the league wanted to get to a full 82 it would take them almost 4 weeks to play the final 14 games. My son's PeeWee teams could knock out 5+ games in a weekend but they aren't represented by the players union...

Then with the playoffs you'd think they'd want to cut some of the series down to best of 5. People would probably go bat poop on a best of 3 but it's been done too.

The 19-20 NHL season is over. This blog gave me a chuckle or 2, but it’s time to face reality, it’s done.

At this point, I’m just hoping that 20-21 can begin on time.

The 19-20 NHL season is over. This blog gave me a chuckle or 2, but it’s time to face reality, it’s done.

At this point, I’m just hoping that 20-21 can begin on time.
- BiggE

Agreed.

Not trying to be political: I know people are getting antsy for uplifted restrictions, but without ubiquitously effective testing—and persistent retesting—for infected and for antibodies, I'm worried that it would only result in a second wave (or an uptick). And that would be even worse in the long run for both our way of life and for the economy than for standing pat with restrictions (until the aforementioned prerequisite for testing is achieved).

I read an article in the Smithsonian Magazine the other day about the 1918 pandemic about how people back then rushed too soon to get back to normal, particularly to celebrate the end of WWI, and how that created a second wave that resulted in many more unnecessary deaths. Right now I fear that history will unfortunately repeat itself with the current pandemic.

For those who are curious, here's the article:
https://www.smithsonianma...-onlookers-flu-180970372/

Observe that it was published in September 2018! So the author obviously never intended any context with our current pandemic.

At this point, I’m just hoping that 20-21 can begin on time.
- BiggE

If it does begin on time—assuming both the remainder of the 19-20 season and the playoffs are cancelled—I'm all for adding extra games to the 20-21 to compensate for the unplayed games remaining from the 19-20 season. Why? Combine the record of both regular seasons so that instead of a best-of 82 games to determine the 2021 playoff entrants, it will become the best-of 164 games (I'm OK with expanding the number of teams making the playoffs with added wild card series for lower placed teams). Whomever would be The Stanley Cup Champions, it would be officially for 2019-21, and would be so engraved on the Cup.