Toronto Maple Leafs: NHLPA Approval All Well and Good, But…..

The Toronto Maple Leafs may be returning to action.

The Toronto Maple Leafs last played a game in mid-march when they beat the Tampa Bay Lightning by a score of 2-1.

Since then, there hasn’t been any hockey.

Yesterday, in what is at least a step towards completing the season, the NHLPA approved the NHL’s 24 team playoff proposal and will continue to negotiate to find a way to finish the season.

NHL to Possibly Resume

It’s nice that the format has been decided, but it doesn’t really get us any closer to playing actual hockey.

For anyone who is interested in how this might actually work, I strongly suggest watching the episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver that aired last Sunday.

Oliver talks about the need for sports, but goes into detail on the actual logistics needed to make this happen………..and the news is not good.

Oliver doesn’t mean to have the last word on the subject, but instead he looks at the situation dispassionately in order to explain how returning to sports might work.  If you’re at all interested in seeing how the NHL might return, this is must-watch TV.

The main issue in returning is that it’s quite possibly that all the return to normalcy stuff you are seeing right now works out badly. It’s impossible to know its a good idea to start hockey a month from now if we don’t even know if the situation will have improved or not.

24 of the NHL’s teams are based in America and the country is being led by someone who is clearly not responding to the situation well.  Political opinions aside, the President is objectively disobeying the recommendations of the scientific community this might have a negative impact not only on the world, but on any plans to have hockey.

It’s awesome that hockey might come back.  I hope it does.  But only in a way that is safe.

As of now, we don’t know where the NHL will hold the games, or how they’ll keep players quarantined for three months, and not just players, but all the people necessary to run a hockey game and get it on TV (trainers, media, chefs, janitors, hotel staff, referees, doctors etc.).

The NHL is a giant corporation run by billionaires (the only group of people on earth seeming to benefit from this world wide disaster) and they are not inherently evil, but they also are not a benevolent group of do-gooders.

They are losing money and they don’t like it.  The NHL isn’t returning to make sure their fans have hockey, or because they want to provide an escape for people during these times.

They are returning because they think that they can lose less money if they do so. But no one really seems to be discussing the risks vs the rewards.

Ultimately, who cares what format they come up with? 24 teams? 5 rounds of playoffs? Whatever. If they can get it back, I won’t complain about how they do it.

I just think we might be getting all worked up for something that might not happen, and might not be a good idea if it does.