Rumor: NHL looking at making permanent changes to the regular season.

Big changes on the horizon.

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 3 years ago
Rumor: NHL looking at making permanent changes to the regular season.

We have a very interesting report to share with you and this one comes courtesy of Colorado Avalanche Mike Chambers. In his most recent column for the Denver Post, Chambers revealed that his sources have informed him that the National Hockey League is now considering the possibility of making some major changes to the regular season schedule and, perhaps even more importantly than that, he also revealed that those changes could be permanent ones.

First here's what Chambers had to say on the matter:

Playing Stanley Cup playoff hockey through the summer months might not be a one-time affair. I’m hearing the NHL is looking into permanently beginning its 6 1/2-month regular season in late November or early December — or possibly not until January.

That certainly would make for a big shift in what hockey fans have been accustomed to, and it would also mean that we likely would never see NHL games played in the fall ever again. It appears as though the motivation behind such a move may come as part of the NHL's desire to avoid having to compete with both the National Basketball Association and the National Football League for television viewership. Under this newly proposed schedule the league would only be in direct competition with Major League Baseball and, although the MLB is a very popular league, there's no denying that the combined threat of the NBA and the NFL is much greater. There's also the fact that Major League Baseball has a much older viewing audience on average, and the NHL may feel that there is less overlap between their sport and baseball.

It sounds like the upcoming 2020 - 2021 NHL regular season may actually serve as a test run of sorts for this newly proposed plan, which would make sense given that the NHL will no doubt have to significantly delay the start of that season at this point. This would mean that the NHL would be playing games well into the summer, but if things go well in terms of television ratings there is now a belief that the change could become a permanent one.

Do you like this idea? Would you be willing to give it a shot? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

 

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