Opinion | NBA and NHL look to restart and salvage seasons as coronavirus looms large
- Rumours around the NBA and NHL are flying fast and furious, but there remains no official word from both commissioners
- The two leagues could be good testing grounds as post-Covid-19 life will have to return to normal sometime, somehow
Two of the leagues hardest hit by the global pandemic were undoubtedly the National Basketball League and the National Hockey League.
On March 11, Utah Jazz centre Rudy Gobert told team staff he wasn’t feeling well and was taken to a nearby hospital. What happened next set in motion a cascade throughout the professional sporting world as the NBA cancelled the game, then postponed the season, and the NHL followed suit almost immediately given they share many arenas and venues.
By the end of the week virtually every other major sporting league, from the English Premier League to the PGA had been put on ice. Tournaments were pushed back, and some seasons, like Global Rapid Rugby and the XFL, were axed altogether.
To many, March 11 seems like an age ago with life in stasis as we slowly start planning society’s eventual return to normal. But with countries still grappling with outbreaks, most notably the US, the end appears a way off.
Both the NBA’s commissioner, Adam Silver, and the NHL’s, Gary Bettman, have given multiple statements on resuming their 2019-20 seasons, and they are rightly vague. Silver and Bettman are speaking in lockstep it seems, neither giving timetables for returns, or eluding to potential scenarios if and when they try to pick things back up again.
