NHL players reveal the ONLY reason why the 2019-20 season isn’t canceled!

Phase 3 is underway in the National Hockey League as all 24 teams are getting ready for the tournament that kicks off on August 1st in Toronto and Edmonton. And that’s because the NHL and its Players’ Association agreed Friday to each ratify a four-year extension of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, through the 2025-26 season.

Fans were exciting seeing that it means hockey will return on August 1st, but NHL insider Elliotte Friedman revealed on Thursday in the latest 31 Thoughts podcast why players finally agreed to resume play. 

Players are believed to have settled on playing this summer because they thought that  “if they didn’t try at least to play this summer, the NHL was going to shutdown ’til there was a vaccine, cause the damage financially was going to be so bad, that the only way they could come back was if they could have fans in the stands.”

There were many talks that the 2019-20 season, which was suspended on March 12 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, could be entirely cancelled as it appeared impossible for fans to attend games and therefore provide the much-needed money to run the circuit. 

While fans will not be in attendance for the 24-team playoff tournament in the hub cities of Toronto and Edmonton, it seems like we could see an update for the situation once the 2020-21 campaign kicks off in December. 

There have been tons of work done around the world to find a vaccine for coronavirus, and we never know how fast this could come to fruition. Players however could not gamble on that as the time of the negotiations and opted to get play going this summer and for TV deals to bring the profit to the NHL in the meantime. 

We have no clue how close it came for the 2019-20 season to be cancelled, however, we know that players felt it was important to play the postseason and get as much consistency as possible for the upcoming campaign. 

Thank you!