NHL To Restart With 24-team Playoff In Two Hub Cities

Umer Jamshaid Published May 27, 2020 | 09:30 AM

New York, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 27th May, 2020 ) :The National Hockey League announced Tuesday it will abandon the rest of the regular season and proceed directly to a 24-team playoff staged in two hub cities.

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said the revised schedule would "produce a worthy Stanley Cup champion" after a season that has been put on hold by the coronavirus pandemic.

However Bettman offered no fixed date on when play would resume, while the two cities due to host the playoffs were also yet to be decided. Formal training camps won't open until July 1 at the earliest, he added.

The NHL season has been on pause since March 12 due to the COVID-19 outbreak, and all players currently remain under league-mandated quarantine.

Bettman said 10 cities are in the running for the two hub centers, including seven from the US: Chicago, Columbus, Dallas, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh. The three Canadian cities are Toronto, Vancouver and Edmonton.

Bettman said the league had drawn up a long-list of candidate cities in order to retain scheduling flexibility.

"We didn't want to get locked in. We don't want to go to a place where there is a lot of COVID-19 or we don't want to go to a place where we can't get the testing we need," he said.

"There is going to be extensive testing. It must be available on wide-scale basis without obstructing local needs."