NHL Announces Restart of the Play, Seizes Headlines

The National Hockey League seized the headlines with an official announcement stating the return of the play. With COVID-19 at the forefront of human lives today, everything has been affected and sports isn’t any exception. The pandemic has led to canceling almost every other sport throughout the continent. It has brought about changes in almost every sport pretty much in the same way. Amidst all the speculations & considerations, NHL came forward with this major announcement of the game to restart. This is good news for NHL fans who were eagerly waiting for it to happen. There isn’t any specific date announcement in this regard, but the hockey stars look ready to break a leg at their performances at the NHL season. The league is working out on some hurdles and getting this clear so that the game is played balls to the walls till the end.

Let’s Have a Sneak Peek into some major parts of the Announcements:

With the season resuming to play, only a 24-team playoff will be played directly with the official closure of the 2019-2020 regular season.

The two hub cities will be hosting the postseason games — the Western Conference & the Eastern Conference.

The league has given options for the hub city including Los Angeles, Toronto, Las Vegas, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Columbus, Pittsburgh, Edmonton, Vancouver, and Dallas — but the final announcement on this is still awaited.

There isn’t any final announcement on whether the playoff will be bracketed or seeded. Also, it has not yet been decided whether playoffs’ first few rounds are going to be best-of-seven or best-of-five.

Phase II of the preparatory play will most likely start from the beginning of June, but again there isn’t any specific date release with respect to this.

Phase III will have a training camp organized which is slated to last for about three weeks or more. And, phase IV is about to usher in the postseason, but the dates are still not available.

The announcement has got a massive reaction from all around the world from fans. This excitement was apparently expected, but fans will have to wait for some meaningful game for the coming month. With Phase III making its way to open through the 1st of July, the game will be expected to start from early August or late July. This means the wrapping up of the game in September or October, making way for the start of the following season in December or January.

Hurdles through NHL's Phase 2 Procedures.

With all that good news echoing all through — there are still hurdles that NHL has to deal with. Before getting into this significant step, there are plenty of concerns for the league to resolve including creating a feasible contingency plan and winning the players’ trust. It still looks a little confusing! With the announcement of NHL to come into play soon, there was also an announcement of the unique Draft Lottery for this year's game. This will include two phases with eight-teams that get eliminated through the play-in stage.