Chirps from Center Ice

Translated: We have a plan, we just don’t know what it is yet.

Who can play? What’s the schedule going to look like? Of the teams that are going to play, how many games are they going to play? Against who? Fans? Rosters? Playoffs?

Kind of important, don’t you think? But they don’t know yet, or if they do they aren’t telling us. The season starts five weeks this Friday. Tick tock…

Let me speculate:

• Wilkes-Barre is part of the group that plays with all the other PA teams. They play in a division with Hershey, Lehigh Valley, Binghamton, Syracuse, Utica, Rochester and one of either Providence or Springfield. I don’t think that Hartford or Bridgeport play this season.
• No fans allowed. Not that any sensible human being wouldn’t want to go to super spreader event such as an indoor hockey game where the COVID numbers are still out of control in the Commonwealth.
• 42-48 games consisting of a lot of contests with Hershey and Lehigh Valley (10-15 each) and the rest filled out with 2-4 with the New York teams and one or two with either Springfield or Providence.
• I took a two part stab the other day on Twitter on what the taxi squad for Pittsburgh may look like link of to there on who I think stays on the NHL roster.
• Depending on who all plays, you may be looking at the top two or four teams in a division making playoffs or a tournament style playoff system.

Does this excite you? It doesn’t me. Who in their right mind wants to watch a watered down minor league product where all the teams are probably not going to play, behind closed doors?

It’s hard to get invested in a product like this, with a global, out of control pandemic still dangling over our heads.

This isn’t a case for or against piece, either. Remember you are paying money to watch this, money that a lot of people don’t have because, you know, pandemic and all. For me, the money might be well spent someplace else.

More, as it will come. Pandemic be damned.

Wear a mask and wash your hands.