New projected start date for 2021 season revealed!

This sounds more feasible. How exciting!

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 3 years ago
New projected start date for 2021 season revealed!
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Friday is a good day. And this Friday is even better than that! 

Earlier this morning, TSN Senior Hockey Reporter Frank Seravalli reported that the National Hockey League has shared draft schedules with the NHLPA on Thursday, including a 56-game season outline.

While Seravalli pointed out that the schedules were all based on a Jan. 1 start date, the two sides had discussed pushing that date back until later in the month.

And now his colleague insider Pierre LeBrun reveals that the plan is now to see the 2021 season get underway on Jan. 15, which could allow teams to get training camps going after the Christmas break. 


Elliotte Friedman also confirms the report on Friday morning. 


For the past weeks, it sounded like the NHL was refusing to stray from its original goal of starting the season on Jan. 1, despite the fact that this projected date is just a month away and the format has yet to be determined. However, this new development sounds like a positive one despite the fact that the start date is getting pushed. 

Now, we all know, many more details need to be ironed out. Players aren’t happy about too many things, especially that the NHL has reportedly asked for players to defer 20% of their salaries while escrow increases to 25%. And this despite the fact that both sides agreed to a new six-year collective bargaining agreement before the league’s return to play over the summer that accounted for the expected financial repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic. The union agreed to 10% salary deferrals with escrow capping at 20%. That money was agreed to be paid in three equal, interest-free instalments in October 2022, 2023, 2024.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman insisted Wednesday that the NHL is “not seeking to renegotiate” the six-year Collective Bargaining Agreement extension that was unanimously ratified by owners in July.

“We’re not actually having negotiations and we’re not seeking to renegotiate,” Bettman said. “We made a number of assumptions collectively over the summer, most of which are not applicable anymore.
 
“Whatever the revenues are, the players only get 50 per cent. And if we overpay them and they don’t pay us back in the short term, they have to pay us back over time. There will be stresses on the system, and we’ve had discussions about what those stresses are, and how they might be dealt with. But we’re not trying to say ‘You must do X, Y and Z.’ We’re trying to look for ways to continue to work together.”

It has since been reported that players are weighing options to sue the NHL if it chooses to cancel the 2021 season. However, at the moment, this sounds like pretty good news to see puck drop in early 2021, possibly Jan. 15th. 

Source: TSN