Insider reveals why the NHL refuses to cancel the entire 2019-20 season

Over the past two weeks we, as hockey fans, have heard a lot of crazy proposals to save the 2019-20 NHL season. Cancel the regular season and start the Stanley Cup playoffs as soon as possible, have a 31 team playoff format, resume play in June and play right up until September training camp. These are just a few examples, but some wonder if we should just throw in the towel and focus on next season without crowning anyone champion this time around. 

When answering questions in a quarantine edition, Insider James Mirtle of The Athletic revealed why the NHL still refuses the potential idea of canceling the entire of 2019-20 season. 

“The biggest reason the league will push to come back—even if it means playing games in July and August —is going to be revenue. The league stands to lose somewhere in the neighbourhood of up to $1 billion if there are no games played until next season. (That’s the direct result of 15 percent of regular season games and all playoff games getting cancelled.)

That’s nearly 20 percent of what revenues would have been this season, based on modest projections. And that would mean massive shortfalls for owners and massive escrow pain for players, on top of the 14 percent they were already giving up.

The biggest piece of what they stand to lose is from having to refund millions of tickets and wipe out playoff gate revenues. That’ll be what they fight to preserve, any way possible.”

When we start seeing the numbers, we can understand why the NHL is still fighting to hold the rest of the season and crown a Stanley Cup champion. 

However, it feels like we won’t know much more on how they will manage to do it…