We’re less than one week away from the Toronto Maple Leafs playing meaningful hockey again.
After months of darkness in the NHL world, the Toronto Maple Leafs will begin their season again on August 2nd.
As I’ve talked about many different times, the past four months have been weird.
It’s been nice to break from hockey but at the same time I’ve never been so excited for it to return, especially at the time it’s returning.
NHL Playoffs Will Be Most Exciting Ever
With the NHL calling Toronto and Edmonton home for the next few months, the ability to stack the television broadcasts makes the return to play so much more exciting.
The @NHL has announced the 2020 #StanleyCup Qualifiers North American broadcast schedule including a 10-game opening weekend. Full Broadcast Schedule: https://t.co/hmUwsKJdQY pic.twitter.com/kb0XGIzQyC
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) July 21, 2020
Typically when the NHL Playoffs start, you’ll have four games a night, anywhere from 7:00PM to 10:30PM EST. Now that there’s only one rink per conference to play on, you’re actually going to be able to watch almost every game in entirety instead of worrying about which game to choose.
Depending on your situation, it’s always awesome when you break out the smaller TV, Tablet and Computer in order to have four screens going and four games at once, but now it’s not necessary.
As a Toronto Maple Leafs fan, you’ll be able to watch your favourite team without worrying about what other games are happening. Depending on your time-slot, there will only be a maximum of one other game happening at one time and that’s easy to check in on.
The main reason why this years playoffs are going to blow our minds more than any other year is because not only have we been starved of professional hockey for four months, but because of the circumstances the players are in.
Now that the players are in Hub cities and essentially not allowed to leave for as long as they’re playing, their competitive juices are going to be flowing extra hard.
All the players are going to be like caged animals and when they finally get on the ice, they’re going to explode with excitement and energy to win.
Anyone who’s ever been apart of a team sport, not just hockey itself, understands how much fun and important those team trips are where everyone’s staying in a hotel together, with games happening at all different hours of the day.
You eat together, are sleeping in the same hotel together, play sports together and have fun together. When you’re not playing, you’re either playing mini-sticks in the hallways if you’re younger, or if you’re older, you’re probably talking about the game or watching NHL on TV with your teammates.
There’s a reason why road-trips are so important to teams, even in the NHL. When you’re on a long home-stretch, you’re super busy. If you’re married with kids, you’re taking care of your family and if you’re single, you’re super busy with friends and family as well, but might be spending your time doing a commercial shoot, or something for one of your partners.
When you’re on the road though, you have a sense of freedom. The team can all go out for dinner without worrying about anything, or they can go play golf and get to know each other better and have some fun.
The Hub Cities are essentially going to be long road-trips for every team and the bonds each team are going to make will be last a lifetime. Without their friends and family, the teams will relay on each other all day everyday and the teams that have the tightest bonds will last the longest.
Fortunately for the Toronto Maple Leafs, they’re a young team that seems to enjoy each others company. Even the best players on the team aren’t divas and spend time with those ‘fourth-line guys’, so team chemistry shouldn’t be something to worry about for the Leafs.
When you’re in a bubble, all you’re going to care about is winning and playing hockey. Although your mindset should always be that way in the playoffs, it’ll be intensified knowing that you’re putting your life on the line during this pandemic and you better make the best of it, by coming home with a Stanley Cup Championship.
Let’s see what happens next week, but all I know is that we’re going to be in for a treat when hockey starts up on August 1st.