NHL has thrived in year since 2019-20 season pause

The NHL faced arguably its biggest crisis in a century March 12, 2020, when it paused the 2019-20 season due to concerns surrounding the coronavirus. But not only has it survived, it has thrived in many respects. Most important, it is inching toward normalcy.

"It's almost hard to believe we've all been at this for a year, and we're still not done," NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said Thursday. "Yes, there's a light at the end of the tunnel, but also this isn't the time to let our guard down or reduce our vigilance."
This is a time to take stock of what happened, what the NHL accomplished and what is to come.
The coronavirus was a minor item on the agenda when NHL general managers held their annual meeting March 2-4, 2020. The NHL had barred League employees from overseas travel but left teams to make their own decisions. Some European scouting had been disrupted.
"None of us really knew what this was all about, so we were kind of like everybody else, like, 'Well, this is probably going to be like a flu or a little bit worse, and it'll go away,'" Columbus Blue Jackets GM Jarmo Kekalainen said. "And sure enough, about a week later, the League shut down."
Commissioner Bettman decided to pause the 2019-20 season March 11, 2020, after an NBA player tested positive for COVID-19. He announced it the next day after speaking to the NHL Board of Governors.
"I don't think any of us really knew how serious it was at the time," Chicago Blackhawks forward Patrick Kane said. "I thought maybe we'd have a couple of days or a week off and get right back at it, but obviously that wasn't the case. It was amazing how everything just turned on a dime and the world pretty much stopped."
The NHL hadn't faced anything like this since 1919, when the Stanley Cup championship series could not be completed due to the Spanish flu. But the League was in its second season then. It had three teams, each in eastern Canada. The Montreal Canadiens were playing for the Cup against the Seattle Metropolitans of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association.
Now the NHL had 31 teams across North America, with a 32nd on the way in Seattle, of all places. It was a business generating more than $4 billion in annual revenue, at least when it had fans in attendance.
There was no playbook, starting with the virus itself. It was a novel coronavirus. By definition, it was new.
"What everybody has faced -- not just in sport, but medicine in general through this pandemic -- is that we had to learn on the fly and we had to figure things out based on the best information we had, which was lacking a lot of the time," NHL chief medical officer Willem Meeuwisse said. "And so, we had to do a lot of things through discussion and collaboration and gut feel."

Much was out of the NHL's control, from how the virus was spreading to how local governments were reacting in different markets in two countries. It became clear the NHL could not return with fans in attendance, a blow economically and emotionally.
In that context, it's incredible what the NHL accomplished together with the teams, players and NHL Players' Association.
Safety protocols. A four-year extension of the NHL/NHLPA Collective Bargaining Agreement, providing stability through 2025-26. A made-for-TV 2020 postseason in bubbles in Edmonton and Toronto from Aug. 1-Sept. 28, with no positives among 33,174 COVID-19 tests to team personnel.
A 2020-21 regular season featuring a 56-game schedule and temporary divisional realignment because of travel restrictions. Two made-for-TV outdoor games at Lake Tahoe on Feb. 20-21. A seven-year U.S. media rights deal with the Walt Disney Co. and ESPN that begins next season (with more media rights deals to come).
Not everything has been smooth. It was impractical to play an entire season in bubbles, and so there have been inevitable disruptions. As many as 59 players were unavailable under the NHL COVID-19 protocols Feb. 12.
But the NHL has been flexible and has adapted, rescheduling games, adjusting the protocols. The number of players unavailable under the protocols was down to four Wednesday. Thirteen teams are allowing a limited number of spectators in their arenas. Four are planning to do so soon. Two more have done soft launches.

The NHL has played more than 500 games since the pause. It is on track to finish the regular season in May, award the Stanley Cup in July and start next season on time in October, with the expansion Seattle Kraken debuting in a new arena and the New York Islanders opening a new arena as well.
The hope is to be back to normal by then, or in Commissioner Bettman's words, "pretty darn close."
"Listen, you always try and second-guess yourself, and things don't always work out the way you plan," the Commissioner said. "But I'm not sure what we could have done any differently or how we could have accomplished any more.
"I mean, the fact is, we kept NHL personnel as safe as we could. We were able to conclude the season for '19-20 and crown the Tampa Bay Lightning champions. We were able to do business.
"It was all harder. It was all different. But we were able to power through."
NHL.com staff writer Tracey Myers contributed to this report