beastintheeast
Registered User
- Mar 27, 2013
- 3,016
- 568
Toffoli to my Habs...cool!
should help with the offense. Montreal made a lot of good deals.
Toffoli to my Habs...cool!
Seems like a smart deal now, as Gallagher may depart.should help with the offense. Montreal made a lot of good deals.
1> The border will remain closed to the United States through the Winter. The US based teams will need to relocate to Canada.
2> The QMJHL has had serious issues. First, one of their teams had massive spread. The rest of Quebec was shut down to hockey because of so many defined “hot spots.” It is likely much of Ontario will be classified as a “hot spot.”
3> Because much of Ontario will be considered a “hot spot,” the current plan to billet in their home city and play games in 17 OHL rinks is not viable at all.
It is likely if the league wants to operate, they will need to do some form of bubble like the NHL did. I don’t see that as viable. It is very unlikely there will be a season. If there is, the number of disruptions will be many and I am not sure the physical on ice restrictions will make the competition viable either.
If they can set up a bubble and gain enough revenue from streaming the games and Provincial subsidies, maybe. At least if there is a strict bubble, they’d be able to play a normal physical game.
As I said earlier the best possibility for the OHL is to trade arenas with the AHL if in fact they are going t oplay at all The league could work in a bubble for the players if they wanted. An example would be if they move erie to Belleville then they could bubble the players from Ottawa, Kingston, Belleville and either Cornwall or Peterborough. Agnew would have to be willing to give up some of the revenue from games that Kingston did not play in to the team designated home team.
Fans could bus to the games if they wanted to but would have had to be separated by at least one seat.
Players would be restricted to their hotels and the arena You could possibly use the township arena for practices as well as the main arena.
This would have worked back in the late 60's when the teams were owned or affiliated with NHL teams. Then the NHL teams would have been willing to put some money into their teams to aid in the development of their players.
That being said I hardly see them doing this and the logistics would be a complete shambles.
What little money the owners make is from advertising it is going to be hard to sell advertising if you are marketing on 1000 people at a game.
There will not be any help to sports teams as most sports teams let's face it are not important enough in the scheme of things.
The best thing that the CHL can do is cancel the season and let the NHL teams decide what they want to do with their drafted players and where they can see them playing.
It will also allow players like Hoesher and others look to the ECHL and their agents try to get them a deal. This could be the same for a lot of the players that are eligible for the draft this year.
In the future, the history books will show that the 2020/21 OHL season will have an asterisks beside it. The OHL needs to accept this and, as a business, move forward with an alternative business model for the 2020/21 season. I'm suggesting that a minor hockey business model be considered. In the past six weeks, my Pee-Wee aged son has played in four for-profit tournaments in the GTA. He's playing more than the OHL. If a window of opportunity opens for a group of OHL teams to participate in one or more intensely scheduled tournaments (2-3 games a day per team? 12 minute stop-time periods? etc.) then at least some continued player and team development can occur within this novel environment utilizing potentially atypical playing formats. Formats like 4-on-4 games should be considered. Regional and weekend local championships should be considered. One-off rivalry games should be considered. The traditional regular season format needs to be thrown out this year and replaced by opportunistic ideas to get at least a few teams together and, in relatively safe semi-bubble environments, play at least a few games. A traditional season and any sense of keeping traditional statistics should be tossed out. The 2020/21 season represents an opportunity to think creatively about exciting new formats and innovative game styles that can be experimented with and that can still drive fan interest and player development. If the 2020/21 season is mostly or exclusively exhibition games, then that's better than no season. Here's the business plan:
1. Play hockey (any hockey). [Some teams may play more, some may play less. Some may not play at all.]
2. Minimize expenses. [No buses - players drive themselves. No hotels - games are played relatively locally. No team purchased meals - players' families pay for food. No team purchased sticks, etc. - players provide their own. Etc.]
3. Assume there will be no fans in the seats. Assume there will only be TV or online fans.
4. Seek financial support from the federal, provincial and municipal governments.
5. Seek financial support (and/or relief) from the players (and their parents). [This will mean that the Standard OHL Player Contract will need a brief Addendum related to the unique 2020/21 season.]
6. Seek crowdfunding support from the Clubs' fan bases.
7. Seek a major sponsor for each exhibition tournament, regional series, or rivalry game. Consider approaching businesses that are thriving during the COVID-19 pandemic to participate as sponsors (for example: Amazon.com; Skip-the-dishes; Pizza Pizza; Dominos; Canada Post; Electronic Arts and Nintendo; Peloton; 3M; Wayfair; etc.]
8. Seek revenue from TV and online viewers of the games.
9. Allow for very, very flexible player rosters since local players may be preferred over billet-family players and also players without evidence of timely negative COVID-19 test results would not be able to participate.
Play hockey. Any hockey. Any format. Safely.
Contracts can be amended. Please see my earlier recommendation about adding a brief Addendum (a one or two page attachment) to the Standard OHL Players Contract. Consider that from the player's perspective their current contract with their OHL club (without the proposed Addendum) is not worth much to the player while the league is shut down and is inoperative. A player will likely agree to revised terms if that's what it takes to get the league operating again and some local exhibition games/tournaments going. That's better than the status quo, for both the player and the league and its clubs. Also, if it seems daunting to renegotiate with every player, including some potential hold outs, then the recommended very flexible roster rules for the 2020/21 season should provide the clubs with enough flexibility to navigate those concerns and still ice a good team.Players have contracts.
Contracts that can be amended if in the player's and best interest of the league.
I don't think either side would set that prescident.
The bottom line at this point it is both not safe nor financially feasible to play hockey at this point.
Safe is not just the players although they are important it is also the fams have to feel safe be willing to come out. It also depends on the government saying that it is safe to hold hockey games.
I really do not see the provincial government will give any money. The government is low on funds and have a lot of bigger things to fund.
CONGRATULATIONS MARCO
Rossi signs entry-level contract with Wild
Depending on training camp if he does not make the WILD and the OHL goes ahead I would think they will send him back to Ottawa so that he can almost immediately go to the WILD or AHL at the end of the OHL season
Just looking at the known hockey schedule.
I think the OHL will not start until the new year and be missing players.
If you look at the NHL plan as well as WJC I see junior players reporting to WJC teams at mid-end November. They will play until mid-January in the WJC
Players like Lafreniere and Rossi and such will miss the NHL training camps and will play the WJC then join their respective NHL teams to
a. practice
b. show that they can make the team
c. play the nine games.
That means that you will miss Quinn and other players until mid-February. if you add in the quarantine period that the CDN government will mandate.
That also means that Tourigny may not be behind the bench until end of Jan at earliest