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The self-care blog — and how we could award 2 Stanley Cups in 16 months |
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How's everybody doing?
I feel like it's time to make this a 'self-care' edition of the blog.
I've been letting my anxiety levels creep up over the last day or two, so I made a pact today to be more mindful about looking after myself.
I went out for a run this morning, which was pretty glorious. It is one beautiful day here in Vancouver, with spring officially set to begin this weekend. The trees are starting to bud and the ducks and geese seem to be getting ready for nesting season.
A couple of other tools I use regularly to help settle down when my mind starts racing:
• If you're a Spotify subscriber, I can't recommend the "Peaceful Piano" playlist enthusiastically enough. I usually let it play through the night; it helps cover up outside noise, and it's a pretty steady volume so there are no big crescendos or guitar solos to jar me awake.
The one downside: Spotify's algorithms now believe this is my generally preferred genre of music. The first three artists that pop up on my "Your Top Songs 2019" playlist are Melanie Laurent, SYML and Kyle McEvoy. No offense to them but 🤦♀️.
It'd be more topical if it was SMYL and Charlie McAvoy, dontcha think?
I'm also a fan of the "Calm" app, especially their sleep tools. If you're interested in poking around, they have plenty of free resources that you can explore.
I was originally planning to write about the news of the day, but here's something different that I think is more fun — and can hopefully spur some discussion and help take our mind off the big bad world for a bit.
While I was listening to the "31 Thoughts" podcast during my run, Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek bandied around a playoff idea that caught my attention.
Marek said he'd spoken to someone who had suggested the idea of awarding two Stanley Cups next season, if it turns out this year can't be salvaged in some realistic fashion.
I haven't been very interested in trying to map out a postseason schedule or argue about how many teams would make the playoffs when there is so much uncertainty about how our world will unfold over the next several weeks/next few months. And I didn't love Marek's suggestion, that would basically split next year into two segments, with two Cups — I guess, almost like the schedule the Vancouver Canadians play under in their Single A Northwest League?
Jumping off from there, I started imagining a world where maybe things could start grinding back to normal — say, after the Olympics? As of now, they're still scheduled from July 24-August 9 in Tokyo and my understanding is that it's almost impossible to consider moving or postponing them; the enterprise is just too big.
That could still change, of course. But if they are able to go ahead, that would mean two things that are important to the NHL:
1. It's considered safe again to have international travel and large gatherings of people.
2. The league's American broadcast partner, NBC, would never want to have hockey running up against its most important sports property, the Olympics.
My idea: End the NHL "pause" as soon as the Olympics are over.
By then, players will have had some time to train properly in whatever facilities they prefer. The league could convene its training camps to run at the same time as the Olympics.
Then, starting Thursday, August 13, they start playing out the last three and a half weeks of the 2019-20 schedule — as much as possible, on the same schedule as the postponed games we're missing right now.
The Canucks would pick up with those back-to-back road games in Arizona and Colorado on August 13th and 14th.
Contract end dates would all be rolled forward, so rosters would remain the same as they are now. We'd still get the stretch run, and have a final determination of which 16 teams qualify for the playoffs and how Vancouver's conditional first-round draft pick plays out. And we'd get to see the Hughes vs. Makar race for the Calder Trophy.
The regular season would conclude on Sept. 4, then the 2020 playoffs would start on Sept. 9.
If you ran the traditional four best-of-seven rounds, the Stanley Cup would be awarded somewhere around Nov. 10 — five months later than usual. As that's going on, teams will be able to start making determinations on whether they want to make changes to their coaching staffs or front offices, etc.
After that, you take a one-month break for league business. Hold the draft on Nov. 25, and have contracts ending as of Nov. 30, with free agency opening on Dec. 1.
By Dec. 8, teams start to convene for formal workouts and practices, then the new 2020-21 season starts on December 16.
That's about a month earlier than the 48-game season that was played in 2012-13. My guess is that they could probably squeeze in 60 games or more — especially if they're willing to bump back the beginning of playoffs by a couple of weeks.
By cutting the games out of the upcoming season instead of eliminating the rest of this year, you establish a level playing field. Everyone would know, going in, what they're dealing with, and the schedule could be appropriately balanced where every team has an equal number of home and away games and it interlocks in some sensible way to preserve integrity of competition. In the past, they've stuck with in-conference play during those shortened seasons to help cut down on travel; that might also be a possibility — or just playing teams in the opposite conference one time in total, instead of once in each team's rink.
Wrap up the 2020-21 season by, say, the third week of April. Award the 2021 Stanley Cup in the third week of June, and then we're back to normal — with a minimum of games lost and two full-length playoffs to generate the big revenue and eyeballs that the league will really need to get back on its feet economically.
I'm sure there are some tweaks that could be made to smooth this out, but I think that's a pretty solid framework — assuming we're able to get back to regular life by summer.
What say you??
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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