Majority of players still at home
Frank Seravalli of TSN: NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said there are still lots of NHL players who’ll need to travel to their teams’ city ahead of Phase 3 which is scheduled for July 10th.
“Actually, 56 per cent of our players, roughly, aren’t in the places where their teams play and there’ll be training camp,” Bettman said in an interview with ESPN’s Mike Greenberg on Monday night. “So we’ve got a lot of people to move around and we have to get people back from outside of North America.”
Hub city announcement likely next week
TSN: Bob McKenzie said that it’s possible the NHL announces the two hub cities by the end of this week but an announcement most likely won’t come until next week.
“The other in cautioning against front-runners and everyone has talked about Las Vegas and rightfully so, it seems like a front-runner. Anecdotally, people were talking about Toronto as a front-runner from the three Canadian cities. But the reality is that all three Canadian cities – Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton – all very much in the mix and all of the hub potentials are all still very much in the mix.”
Pierre LeBrun adds that he thinks next week is when we’ll get an answer as to the two hub cities. The Board of Governors had a meeting this past Monday and Gary Bettman said all 10 cities are still in the running.
“One American city that has pushed through of late is Chicago, by the way. Yes, Vegas is a lock, but if for whatever reason a Toronto or Vancouver or Edmonton can’t work out, a lot of people like Chicago. I’ll tell you who also likes Chicago, players like being in Chicago. And that’s a consideration when the two sides try to figure out the two hubs.”