On March 12th, 2020, NHL commissioner, Garry Bettman, announced the suspension of the NHL season until further notice. This announcement came just hours after the NBA announced it would suspend its season following Rudy Gobert’s confirmed Coronavirus case.

Sophomore, Declan Burke, exclaimed, “Without hockey, I have nothing to watch!” 

The NBA and NHL share arenas in many places such as Boston and Washington D.C; this was one of the reasons Commissioner Bettman stated when suspending the season. The regular season was originally scheduled to end on April 4th with the playoffs starting the week of April 6th. However, the regular season has not started back up yet and it doesn’t look like it’ll be starting back up any time soon.   

Sophomore, Jordan Brickner, stated, “The Stanley Cup playoffs are the best, and now, we might not get to witness it.” 

After the NBA suspended their season, many leagues followed suit: the MLB, NCAA, MLS and many more. Following the NHL, the American Hockey League, which is the minor league to the NHL, announced they would also suspend their season until further notice. 

The NHL players, along with the Hockey community, have already done a lot to try and help fight this pandemic. With a shortage of masks and face protection, the Bauer Hockey company made face shields and gave them out to health care workers. 

Dallas Stars defenseman John Klingberg, and Florida Panthers forward, Jonathan Hueberdeau, were the first NHL players to announce donations to the CDC COVID-19 response fund. Following these two were fellow Panther Mike Hoffman, St. Louis Blues’ David Perron, Pittsburgh Penguins’ Dominik Simon and Matt Murray, Detroit Red Wings’ Filip Hornek, Vegas Golden Knights’ Marc Andre Fleury and Max Pacioretty and Edmonton Oilers’ William Lagesson. 

Brickner remarked, “It’s good to see NHL players doing whatever they can to help during this time.” 

Along with donations, many teams superstars have participated in Zoom meetings with other teams superstars and offered words of encouragement to fans and healthcare workers. Sidney Crosby, Pittsburgh Penguin captain, told everyone to be patient and stay inside and thanked all the medical workers saying that he is very appreciative and thankful. 

Many NHL teams are also taking the time each day to post a video of somebody within the organization to offer words of encouragement to the fans, to give them the extra push that this isn’t going to last forever and to remind fans to be smart and safe.  

Without any sports left to watch, many teams networks along with the NHL Network and NBCSN have been airing old “throwback” games to give fans something to watch during this tough period of time, even going as far as streaming simulations of NHL games from the video game, NHL20 by EA Sports.    

The NHL, along with all professional sports will be back eventually, so let’s do our part to help it by staying inside and being safe.