SBJ Conference and Events: NHL commissioner Gary Bettman spoke yesterday at the Sports Business Journal’s Deal Makers conference. When asked about the proposed January 1st start date for the 2020-21 NHL season.
** NHLrumors.com transcription
“That is a work in progress influenced largely by what we are hearing from the medical experts and we talked to some pretty highly placed people without name dropping. COVID is going through a second wave which could be worst than the first wave and between Thanksgiving and the aftermath, and what they think is going to happen for Christmas and the aftermath, we are taking our time and making sure that as we look for ways to move forward we’re focused on health and safety in doing the right thing.
You know it was interesting, taking a step back on two points for the last thing we discussed. When we announced over the summer and the spring that we were extending the collective bagaining agreement, that we had the appropriate protocols agreed to, that we had a format to Return to Play and we were going to do the bubbles. We, I didn’t announce where the bubble were going to be. There was some criticism of that, ‘just tell us where we are going.’ And we said, ‘We don’t have to announce that for another couple of weeks. I want to see what COVID is doing.’ And in fact, we reversed field and wound up in places that we weren’t necessarily thinking about at the time we announced everything else and it was clear that Toronto and Edmonton were the safest places in North America that we could go to, which is why we went there.
As to your question about sense of relief when I presented the Stanley Cup, I had for months this notion in my head that said, “Once we get through this, hopefully we will, I present the Cup, I can take a deep breath and maybe have some downtime for a couple of weeks.’ When I got off the plane coming back from Edmonton, I was on the phone and we were already focused on the things we needed to do for the 2020-21 season.”