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April 8, 2020 By: Terry Frei

It’s time for the final buzzer to sound on 2019-20 NBA, NHL seasons

The time has come for the NBA and NHL to write off the remainder of their 2019-20 seasons, including the playoffs, and point to preparing for 2020-21.

It’s impossible to envision a scenario in which we’re comfortable enough for games to be resumed soon enough, in home arenas with spectators in the seats.

And that’s the way the leagues should return from the COVID-19 shutdowns.

No games in all-but-empty arenas serving as television studios.

No games in Grand Forks, Manchester, Casper, Antarctica or (beyond Golden Knights games) Las Vegas.

It’s either deemed safe enough to play games in the New Normal — including safe for the players — or it isn’t.

Something like blanket, quick-result COVID-19 testing capability for players and then resuming games in essentially empty arenas is perhaps one theoretically viable option. But it would be better to step away from this season and wait. The return of sports is far down the list of priorities, given the toll and the damage to ways of life and the economy.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman appeared on “Lunch Talk Live,” with Mike Tirico, on NBCSN Tuesday. He said the league is looking at playing “well into the summer,” if it’s possible.

Bettman added, “all of us running sports are basically focused on the same things. First and foremost, people’s health and well-being and safety is the most important, and while we all miss sports, either putting it on or watching it, and we all want to come back as quickly as possible, we understand what the number 1 priority is. We’re all going to have to wait until we have a lot more information, maybe in the next few weeks, before we can make any decisions.”

My opinion has evolved. On March 20 — only three weeks ago, but seemingly months ago — my column here was an overview of a last-resort means of deciding NHL and NBA championships for the 2019-20 seasons. That column is here.

In short, link the NHL and NBA postseasons together in 13 days of pseudo-March Madness, with 16-team brackets and single- elimination tournaments.

Every game is Game 7.

The Stanley Cup would be awarded one night, the Larry O’Brien Trophy the next.

I noted that in theory it could be dropped in front of the 2020-21 season, but added I was opposed to using this format — or any other — unless it could have the feel of being a separate conclusion to this season rather than the beginning of next.

I now believe even that sort of single-elimination postseason won’t be appropriate soon enough.

The numbers, the visuals, the personal stories, are in most cases horrifying, with enough heartening instances of heroic responses mixed in to remind us of the resilience of the human spirit.

As I type, we’ve been braced for this week’s toll to be even more staggering than in previous weeks, and the number of deaths tied to COVID-19 in the U.S. is on the verge of surpassing 13,000.

Yes, amid that, projections and flattening of curves provide some hope of the nightmare winding down. Mayors’ stated reasoning in setting or extending the reach of stay-at-home orders at leasts hint at a lighted and flickering match at the end of the dark tunnel.

Of course, they could be extended again, too.

For example, Denver Mayor Michael Hancock last week extended the stay-at-home mandate to April 30. On Monday night in an address to the state, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis extended the statewide stay-at-home order to April 26. The optimistic interpretation is that if Polis believed stay at home was going to have to be extended again, he would have just matched Denver’s April 30 date.

Maybe I’m reaching. He also could have been noting the symmetry, since his original stay-at-home order went into effect on March 26.

Regardless, the underlying point is that the best-case scenario, of a semblance of normal American routine returning in the late spring or summer, must be linked to erring on the side of caution. Lifting of stay-at-home orders and relaxation of social distancing mandates won’t be the “all clear” sign. They will be steps.

Coping includes facing the possibility of a resurgence of the coronavirus in the fall.

The possibilties being pondered, mostly involving full postseasons in the team sports, now seem wildly unrealistic. That’s for everything from the Masters to the NHL and NBA. And the additional backdrop is the complete cancellation of the NCAA basketball tournaments and spring sports, the postponement of the 2020 Summer Olympics until 2021 … and so much more.

Leagues and governing organizations have accesss to information most of us don’t have. Conceded. I sincerely hope the fact that some seem to be in favor of putting heads down and plowing on as soon as possible turns out to be prescient strategizing, not revenue-driven stubbornness.

Under any circumstance, do you see resuming play in the next few months coming with assurance that spectators — and players — are what can be considered “safe”? And feel that way? At least relatively speaking?

I don’t. At least not in the NHL and NBA.

After shutting down and at least postponing MLB is assessing its options, too. College football and the NFL, same thing.

Until the NHL and NBA can sell the New Normal, with regular arenas and crowds, they should stay shut down. That means writing off 2019-20 … and hoping the Opening Nights in October can be a restrained, respectful celebration.

About Terry: Terry Frei is the author of seven books. His novels are Olympic Affair and The Witch’s Season, and among his five non-fiction works are Horns, Hogs, and Nixon Coming; Third Down and a War to Go; and March 1939: Before the Madness. Information is available on his web site, terryfrei.com. His woodypaige.com archive can be found here.