The players have spent the equivalent to a normal offseason not playing, and barely training, which means it'll be rife with chaotic randomness and a preseason level of hockey for the Play In round.
I already found it hard to get pysched up about playoffs when it was in June, it might be a bit hard for August/September.
I still feel like there's a very high chance it gets cancelled before it's ever completed and they'll end up having to scuttle/postpone the 20/21 season as a result of outbreaks and 2nd waves this fall and winter.
Yup.
1) I don't care about watching hockey in the summer in the best of times. If the Canucks aren't playing, I've usually tuned out of the playoffs by the Cup Finals. And I don't care about the stupid August World Cups.
2) There's been longer than a normal offseason and this feels like it has zero connection to 19-20 NHL season. I don't even remember what the lines looked like when we last played. Finishing the year after a 5-month break doesn't feel like it's crowning a champion for the season we watched. It just feels totally random.
3) The players are going to be horribly out of shape and everything is going to be very randomized. The team that did the best job of keeping fit over the lockdown will probably win the Cup, not the best hockey team.
4) The whole thing is designed so freaking huge and with so many teams that it seems inevitable that there will be an outbreak at some point which cancels the whole thing. I don't really want to get emotionally invested just to be disappointed again.
5) Watching European soccer games with no crowds is just weird and isn't the same.
I mean, I'll follow what happens and watch the Canuck games ... but I'm not excited about it at all. It feels more like a duty almost.
