Report: NHL season to start Jan 13th, possibly with fans in attendance

Drop the puck! Ladies and gentlemen, we WILL have NHL hockey this season.

According to multiple reports from NHL insiders Elliotte Friedman, Darren Dreger and Pierre LeBrun the NHL and NHLPA have both come to an agreement that will avoid the outright cancellation and the further postponement of the 2021 NHL season.

That agreement? It's the same one that the league and the players agreed to already back in July. In other words, the NHL has lost in its effort to re-open the collecting bargaining agreement that they signed earlier this year. Both the NHL and the NHLPA have agreed to "keep economic framework of new CBA."

From Friedman's most recent column for Sportsnet:

The NHL and NHLPA will continue to negotiate protocols for the 2020-21 season, but agreed that the economic framework of the newly negotiated CBA won’t be changed.

According to multiple sources, they (the players) were willing to defer additional monies — in exchange for what they considered a meaningful concession. One of the suggestions, for example, was slightly raising the salary cap to put more money in the system. (Yes, that could increase how much players will eventually owe to balance the 50/50 split, but with escrow caps, it is not a great concern to the current group.) No deal could be reached, and both sides decided to move on.

From LeBrun:

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From Dreger:

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To take it a step further, ESPN's Greg Wyshynski goes so far as to confirm January 13th as the NHL's start date.

Check it out:

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Wow... take a moment to appreciate the historic moment in which Gary Bettman admitted defeat at the hands of the NHLPA. After decades of forcing the players to bend to his will, Bettman must have finally realized that he had no leg to stand on in this case. Are the owners in a tough spot? Absolutely. But, at the end of the day you signed an agreement that took all of that into consideration. There's nothing left to negotiate. 

So... what's next?

There's obviously work to do with regards to the logistics of such a challenging season, but the biggest hurdle is obviously getting fans to buy tickets and attend games where local public health orders allow. According to Shawn Hutcheon of The Fourth Period, the Boston Bruins are looking at the possibility of having up to 7,500 fans in attendance.

Check it out:

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Hey! It's better than nothing and you can bet your last bottom dollar that Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs will take anything and everything he can get.

The bigger question though is will we even see teams travelling or will the NHL go the "bubble" route? Wyshynski reports that the NHL is looking into Las Vegas, New Jersey and Columbus as potential hub cities. It's expected that either Toronto or Edmonton will serve as the Canadian division hub city.

Check it out:

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There's a lot of work to be done, but we're slowly inching toward a "normal" season of NHL hockey.