The Best Game You Can Name (Ice Hockey)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTSiJ2cIZrk

Arguably belongs elsewhere because I can see non hockey fans interested in this being laid out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuDeBAYhKO0

NHL has officially unveiled a plan to move forward.

  • No dates yet.
  • Games are planned to be played in two “hub cities”, but they aren’t determined yet either.
  • The format has 24 teams in the playoffs, the top 12 of each conference.
  • The Sabres, Sens, Devils and Red Wings are eliminated, while in the west it is exactly the three Californian teams whose season officially ended yesterday.
  • The top four teams in each conference by points percentage play a round robin against each other to determine their seeding, but get a bye to the next round.
  • The other eight teams in a conference are separated into best-of-five playoff series to qualify for the next round where they will be matched against the top four teams.

I’m still rather doubtful whether all of this will actually happen, considering just how profoundly the U.S. fucked up its response to the situation, but there is a plan. I still personally think it would have been the best course of action to just scrap the season and hope you could start the next on time, even if it is painful.

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Just double-checked, the Stanley Cup was not awarded in 1919, on account of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic, so there’s a precedent to just call the whole thing off in the interest of safety.

They’re setting up a pretty solid plan and have given themselves a lot of time to be able to pull the plug if necessary.

Training camps won’t even be considered before July. The real question will be what cities (if any) are relatively safe.

I predict that this doesn’t happen. You need a lot more than just the players to run a league. I saw an estimate that like 10,000 in total staff are required to get something like the MLB running. That’s a whole lot of people to quarantine in a city for a sports season. An unrealistic number, in my opinion.

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They have specific plans for a thin operation. Most of the typical support staff wouldn’t be necessary. A large percentage of the ones who are necessary could do their work remotely.

It’s a small number of teams and games with minimal cross-play. The number of teams will decrease at a constant pace. It’s definitely plausible and likely feasible.

Say you cut it down. Shave that 10k to to a razor thin, bare bones 2500. Same thing, unrealistic number in my opinion.

Not to say they won’t do it anyway, it just won’t be safe.

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I made a quick back of the napkin calculation and I think you could do this with a bit north of 500 people per site.

  • 23 players
  • 1 head coach
  • 3 assistant coaches
  • 1 goalie coach
  • 1 team doctor
  • 1 massage therapist
  • 3 trainers
  • 3 equipment managers
    =
    36 people per team
    times 12 teams
    =
    432 people per team

plus (all these numbers are doubled or quadrupled from usual requirements because the plan seems to call for at least two games per day and so people will work games in shifts)

  • 20 arena management
  • 8 referees
  • 8 linesmen
  • 10 off-ice officials (time keepers, scorers)
  • 8 camera operators
  • 20 photographers

= a total of 506 people.

Let’s say I lowballed some of these guesstimates, and plan in some additional roles like cleaning staff, EMTs, security, cooks, additional team staff, etc. but I still don’t think this would go above 600 people involved per site.

However, even this seems like quite a large number of people who are basically in constant contact with each other and have to utilize the same spaces each day. There is also the risk of what happens when something breaks and you have to call in people from the outside or replace equipment.

This article discusses basketball, not hockey, but the way the number of people involved grows exponentially is pretty shocking:

"Teams are comprised of 15 players each. Multiplied by 30, that’s 450 bodies, just counting the on-court participants. Players don’t travel alone, though. Add in coaches, trainers, PR people…even with a skeleton crew you’re probably looking at doubling the entourage for each team. Now we have 800-900 people in the process.

We have not yet accounted for referees, league officials, broadcasters and their technical crews, plus arena support staff. That’s going to push the total above 1000.

But wait, there’s more. How do you feed 1000 people in a restricted bubble zone? Who cleans up after them?

Add in the ancillary food/hospitality/delivery support staff and the community climbs into the thousands. Are all those people staying sequestered in the NBA locale? If so, you now how to pay, house, and feed them 24/7. If not, your bubble is no longer a bubble. People are going in and out of it all the time.

Let’s go back to being conservative. Let’s say the grand total is 2000 with food, lodging, and every possible service accounted for. That’s 2000 potential virus vectors, jammed into proximity. Probably 75% of them are not under strict quarantine because they go home at night, cook at other venues, have days off, or whatever. What are the odds that nobody among those 2000 people catches or spreads the virus?"

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I was bored at work and made a hockey thing. Posted it to reddit if you want to read the full rundown of this thing.

Interesting new information I came across today:

NHL and NHLPA just voted in favor of a 4-year extension on the current CBA, so no lockout coming. They also voted on a return to play package. The two hub cities have been chosen: Toronto and Edmonton. The start of the “play-in-games” as the NHL declared the 5-game-series among the middle-8 teams of each conference is August 1st. They will have concluded by August 10th at which point will be “phase 2” of this years draft lottery (a situation I don’t want to get into) which will decide who gets the 1st overall pick. The “first round” of the actual playoffs will start the day after.


Meanwhile, Calgary Flames defenceman Travis Hamonic has declared that he will not return to play, citing concerns about the situation and the fact that he has a daughter who has already suffered a respiratory illness.

Personally I have to agree with Hamonic. We are already seeing spikes of cases around the world as countries have started relaxing guidances and restrictions. Worst of all of course in the U.S. who never really had a full recovery in the first place. Considering that the majority of players live in the U.S. this is basically powder get waiting to explode. They have a better chance with the hub cities being in Canada, but even one team suffering an outbreak will doom the entire effort. It is just way too risky.

You missed the most important part.

Olympics are back in the picture!

GeekNights meetup. Milan 2026, who’s in?

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I mean, that could be something as I am “just” 6 hours by car away. However, I am not sure I ever want to hand money to the IOC.

If I could avoid it, I wouldn’t even give them someone else’s money.

Same. But vacation in Milan plus hockey is pretty enticing.

There’s water in air, so I say it counts.

Professional(?) air hockey with commentary:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=jODy2s51fik

It’s not in depth analysis or anything, but even hearing the terminology as a lay person is super interesting.

The YouTube channel has entire matches, including Worlds last year.

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