from Damien Cox of the Toronto Star,

The NHL seems particularly hell-bent on discarding any sense that a hockey season should be contained to a particular time of year. Accordingly, it appears there’s a plan being advanced by the return-to-play committee to stretch the 2019-20 season into August, maybe even September, and start the next one in December.

Suddenly, anything’s possible for Gary (Mr. Flexible) Bettman. Funny, but that didn’t seem to be the way things operated back on Feb. 16, 2005 when Bettman unilaterally cancelled the 2004-05 season because it was “no longer practical to conduct even an abbreviated season.” Couldn’t dream of playing into July then. Couldn’t wait another day to cancel the season.

Clearly, the NHL is flexible with the parameters of its season when it wants to be, and not at all other times.

That playing well beyond Canada Day is something Bettman and his owners are seriously considering just shows how desperate they are getting to find a way to “complete” the 2019-20 campaign, particularly in a way that satisfies their broadcast partners. The NHL loves to talk about tradition when it fits their commercial purposes, but the status of what was once beloved as a winter game was altered long ago by growth into southern climes and now stands to be further twisted by holding the most important games in deep summer.

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