World Junior Championships will be a much welcome diversion
The pandemic has hit all sports across North America hard, but junior hockey has been totally ravaged by it in 2020.
Timing of the pandemic is a big reason why. The sports world shut down starting with the National Basketball Association on Mar.
11, with that night pretty much signalling the start of the restrictions we have been living with for the rest of this year.
Junior hockey was just wrapping up its regular season in the Ontario Hockey League, Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) and Western Hockey League.
All activities in the league were immediately stopped, and the Canadian Hockey League made the painful but wise decision to almost immediately cancel its season.
Some pro sports leagues later restarted and successfully managed to complete their seasons in hub cities or in a bubble.
That was never an option for junior hockey, however; pro sports leagues make a lot of money off TV rights. Junior hockey does not.
COVID affected all sports to some degree, but junior hockey has suffered greatly.
The OHL, QMJHL and WHL all couldn’t finish their seasons and the 2020 Memorial Cup was cancelled.
Compounding the junior hockey league problem is the fact that the pandemic is also going to hugely affect what kind of a season they can have this winter – presuming they can have one at all.
At the moment, the OHL and the local Mississauga Steelheads are hoping to start in February, and the WHL wants to start next month.
But with the chances of having any fans in the stands basically zero, that might get pushed back even further.
There remains a possibility they won’t play at all, or that it will just be a very short season followed by the Memorial Cup in late June in either Oshawa or Sault Ste.
Marie.
The QMJHL stubbornly went off on its own and tried to play. In short, it was a disaster.
The Q had to shut down last week and now faces a huge challenge to start back up. Some teams have played 16 games while others have played as few as five games.
The schedule is completely in tatters and latest reports say the league wants to get players back in their home cities on Jan. 3 so they can quarantine for 14 days before resuming play Jan.
17.
Plan A according to them is to just pick up and keep playing games with inter-provincial travel (they have six teams based in the Maritimes), if pandemic conditions improve.
Plan B is to play out the schedule in regional hub cities.
Good luck with that.
The Q has also made it clear they will not considering cancelling the rest of the season. The WHL and OHL are determined to try, but both of those leagues have been more realistic as to what kind of a season might be possible during COVID.
(How one of the three CHL leagues even were allowed to do this is a subject for another day.) So one season was completely stopped, and the next season is in serious jeopardy.
That’s a lot damage done to a league that cannot operate without fans in the stands.
We’ll see what unfolds in the next few months. In the meantime, at least one junior hockey event appears ready to go on as scheduled.
The 2021 world junior hockey championships are scheduled to begin Christmas Day at Rogers Centre in Edmonton, which served as one of the host hub cities for the NHL’s resumption of play.
It finishes Jan. 5 and will be played entirely in the same kind of bubble that the NHL employed.
Why is it possible to do for the world juniors and not the rest of junior hockey? There’s a one word answer to that question – money.
The world junior hockey championships are a lucrative television product for TSN.
There is a lot of revenue at stake for the network and junior hockey if the event was cancelled.
While having no fans in the stands will be an enormous financial hit, there is enough money to be made to play the games anyway.
That is not the case in the CHL unfortunately.
Playing any kind of a schedule with no fans in the stands would be enormously costly, and there is just no real TV money at all for regular season junior hockey games.
There is hope for some kind of a WHL and OHL season, and some kind of a re-start in the QMJHL, but all bets are off on whether it happens or not.
We’ll know more early in the new year. That will make it two disastrous seasons in a row for the CHL.
World junior hockey will still be a part of our holiday schedule however, which is a good thing. The world junior hockey championships will be a welcome diversion for everyone involved in the sport.
The organizers deserve credit for finding a way to salvage it, but it wouldn’t have been possible without TV money.
For the CHL – well let’s just say like most of the rest of the business world, a COVID vaccine can’t get here fast enough.
—— Roger Lajoie is a sports talk show host on Sportsnet 590 The Fan. He’s been in the sports media business for 40 years, and was Vice President of the Mississauga St.
Michael’s Majors in 2011-12.
Timing of the pandemic is a big reason why. The sports world shut down starting with the National Basketball Association on Mar.
11, with that night pretty much signalling the start of the restrictions we have been living with for the rest of this year.
Junior hockey was just wrapping up its regular season in the Ontario Hockey League, Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) and Western Hockey League.
All activities in the league were immediately stopped, and the Canadian Hockey League made the painful but wise decision to almost immediately cancel its season.
Some pro sports leagues later restarted and successfully managed to complete their seasons in hub cities or in a bubble.
That was never an option for junior hockey, however; pro sports leagues make a lot of money off TV rights. Junior hockey does not.
COVID affected all sports to some degree, but junior hockey has suffered greatly.
The OHL, QMJHL and WHL all couldn’t finish their seasons and the 2020 Memorial Cup was cancelled.
Compounding the junior hockey league problem is the fact that the pandemic is also going to hugely affect what kind of a season they can have this winter – presuming they can have one at all.
At the moment, the OHL and the local Mississauga Steelheads are hoping to start in February, and the WHL wants to start next month.
But with the chances of having any fans in the stands basically zero, that might get pushed back even further.
There remains a possibility they won’t play at all, or that it will just be a very short season followed by the Memorial Cup in late June in either Oshawa or Sault Ste.
Marie.
The QMJHL stubbornly went off on its own and tried to play. In short, it was a disaster.
The Q had to shut down last week and now faces a huge challenge to start back up. Some teams have played 16 games while others have played as few as five games.
The schedule is completely in tatters and latest reports say the league wants to get players back in their home cities on Jan. 3 so they can quarantine for 14 days before resuming play Jan.
17.
Plan A according to them is to just pick up and keep playing games with inter-provincial travel (they have six teams based in the Maritimes), if pandemic conditions improve.
Plan B is to play out the schedule in regional hub cities.
Good luck with that.
The Q has also made it clear they will not considering cancelling the rest of the season. The WHL and OHL are determined to try, but both of those leagues have been more realistic as to what kind of a season might be possible during COVID.
(How one of the three CHL leagues even were allowed to do this is a subject for another day.) So one season was completely stopped, and the next season is in serious jeopardy.
That’s a lot damage done to a league that cannot operate without fans in the stands.
We’ll see what unfolds in the next few months. In the meantime, at least one junior hockey event appears ready to go on as scheduled.
The 2021 world junior hockey championships are scheduled to begin Christmas Day at Rogers Centre in Edmonton, which served as one of the host hub cities for the NHL’s resumption of play.
It finishes Jan. 5 and will be played entirely in the same kind of bubble that the NHL employed.
Why is it possible to do for the world juniors and not the rest of junior hockey? There’s a one word answer to that question – money.
The world junior hockey championships are a lucrative television product for TSN.
There is a lot of revenue at stake for the network and junior hockey if the event was cancelled.
While having no fans in the stands will be an enormous financial hit, there is enough money to be made to play the games anyway.
That is not the case in the CHL unfortunately.
Playing any kind of a schedule with no fans in the stands would be enormously costly, and there is just no real TV money at all for regular season junior hockey games.
There is hope for some kind of a WHL and OHL season, and some kind of a re-start in the QMJHL, but all bets are off on whether it happens or not.
We’ll know more early in the new year. That will make it two disastrous seasons in a row for the CHL.
World junior hockey will still be a part of our holiday schedule however, which is a good thing. The world junior hockey championships will be a welcome diversion for everyone involved in the sport.
The organizers deserve credit for finding a way to salvage it, but it wouldn’t have been possible without TV money.
For the CHL – well let’s just say like most of the rest of the business world, a COVID vaccine can’t get here fast enough.
—— Roger Lajoie is a sports talk show host on Sportsnet 590 The Fan. He’s been in the sports media business for 40 years, and was Vice President of the Mississauga St.
Michael’s Majors in 2011-12.